Beijing Space Control Center

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Emblem of the Strategic Combat Support Force

The Space Control Beijing ( Chinese  北京航天飛行控制中心  /  北京航天飞行控制中心 , Pinyin Běijīng Hángtiān Feixing Kòngzhì Zhongxin ) of the People's Liberation Army in the aerospace city (航天城, Pinyin Hángtiān Chéng ) in the far north of the municipality Haidian is the department of the Date 1999 the manned space flights and deep-space missions of the People's Republic of China are monitored and controlled. Since January 1, 2016, the Space Control Center has been subordinate to the Space Department of the Strategic Combat Support Force . Colonel Li Jian (李剑) has been in command of the center with the rank of a division (正 师 级) since 2016.

history

On September 21, 1992, the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China approved the manned space program, named after the date as "Project 921" (921 工程, Pinyin 921 Gōngchéng ). Previously, the Xi'an satellite control center , also known as "Base 26", was responsible for telemetry, orbit tracking and control of the Chinese spacecraft . Now it was decided to build a second space control center. In March 1996, the village Tangjialing (唐家岭村) who found in the area in the north greater community Xibeiwang (西北旺镇), Haidian District, the first sod instead. Trial operations began in November 1998, and when the Shenzhou 1 unmanned spacecraft launched on November 19, 1999, the facility, then known as the Beijing Space Command and Control Center (北京 航天 指挥 控制 中心), was used for the first time. Originally the control center was subordinate to the main witness office of the People's Liberation Army . With the structural reform that came into force on January 1, 2016 as part of the “Far-reaching reform of national defense and the military” (深化 国防 和 军队 改革, Pinyin Shēnhuà Guófáng hé Jūnduì Gǎigé ), the facility , which was renamed “Beijing Space Control Center” in 2005, moved to the main department Space (航天 系统 部, Pinyin Hángtiān Xìtǒng Bù ) of the Strategic Combat Support Force of the People's Republic of China . Abroad, the Beijing Space Control Center is also known under its English name Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center or its abbreviation BACC .

construction

Beijing Space Control Center

The Beijing Space Control Center consists of a 15-storey office building extending in an east-west direction with a four-storey porch on the south side. The latter contains the control room, which occupies the three upper floors, with a soundproofed visitor gallery on the 1st floor - visitors hear everything that is going on in the control room via loudspeakers, but the engineers are not distracted by conversations from the visitors the Chinese state and party leadership observed the interesting phases of the space flights. In the control room there are 120 computer workstations for the engineers, arranged in five rows. The first three rows in front of the display board, which is made up of four large screens each measuring 48 m², are used for flight control (飞行 控制 区). The engineers in the fourth row work out strategies for solving problems during the flight (飞行 决策 区). The commander sits in the back row with his assistants and ultimately makes the decisions (首长 指挥 区).

With the expansion of Chinese space activities, the Beijing Space Control Center is increasingly reaching its capacity limit. From summer 2020, for example, not only will the ultraviolet telescope of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences be controlled on the lunar probe Chang'e-3 and the rover Jade Hare 2 , but also the Mars probe Tianwen-1 and in December 2020 the moon return probe Chang'e-5 . From January 2021, the Chinese space station will have to be looked after for at least ten years . Therefore, in 2019 plans were drawn up how the resources of the center can be used at different times for different missions. Large-scale exercises took place in October 2019 as well as in February, March and June 2020.

In the office building behind the control room there is not only the administration, but above all the “National Laboratory for Science and Technology of Flight Attitude Control of Spacecraft” (航天 飞行 动力学 技术 国家 重点 实验室). Numerous engineers, partly in collaboration with scientists from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory or the Laboratory for Lunar and Deep Space Exploration of the National Astronomical Observatories (中国科学院 国家 天文台 月球 与 深 空 探测 重点 实验室), prepare the missions. For example, a transponder was mounted on the lander of the Chang'e-3 lunar probe , which sends signals sent by the Chinese deep space network on the X-band back to earth, where they are used by the CDSN to measure the speed and distance of the moon , i.e. used to precisely determine its orbit. This method is far superior to the electro-optical distance measurement used by the International Laser Ranging Service , which only the McDonald Observatory and the Observatoire de Calern can apply to the moon. The orbit data of the moon determined in this way were then used for more precise navigation on the Chang'e-4 mission and, above all, to prepare for the complicated orbit maneuvers on the return missions .

Since the beginning of 2018, a group led by Li Haitao (李海涛, * 1973) and Dong Guangliang (董光亮, * 1966) has been working on the development of systems for orbit tracking and control of the Mars probe Tianwen-1 . For example, it is planned to add three parabolic antennas of the same type to the existing 35 m antenna at the Kashgar deep-space station and to interconnect the four antennas to form an array that will give the station the same transmit and receive power as the Giyamusi deep-space station with its 66- m antenna. In July 2020, construction work on all three of the new antennas was completed. After adjustments and troubleshooting in the computer systems, the array should go into operation at the end of 2020.

function

Signpost to the space city with a calligraphy by Jiang Zemin

In addition to the weather forecast for take-offs and landings, the monitoring of telemetry signals and the supervision of the astronauts during manned space flights, one of the most important tasks of the control center is the calculation of the flight paths of the spacecraft, the correct time of the orbit maneuvers and the control of their results. The Beijing Space Control Center does not have its own antennas, but receives the necessary data from the Xi'an satellite control center, and from the Chinese VLBI network (中国 VLBI 网, Pinyin Zhōngguó VLBI Wǎng ) of the Academy of Sciences and the ESTRACK system during the deep-space missions European space agency .

The control center in Beijing has a high-speed computer running a program developed by the engineers from the very beginning with more than 7000 modules and over 1 million lines of source code, which processes the measurement data and then calculates the data from the satellite control center's ground stations and tracking ships Xi'an mastered control commands sent to the spacecraft at the same time. In 2003, for example, during the Shenzhou-5 mission, which lasted 21 hours and 23 minutes, the orbit parameters were determined 28 times and a total of 445 preprogrammed control commands and 437 individual commands were sent to Colonel Yang Liwei's spaceship .

The control center staff is very young on average. In 2005, more than 85% of the 274 academics working there were under 30 years of age and often came to the center directly after their studies. More than 100 of the young academics who have been working there since 1998 were group leaders in 2005. This is based on a deliberate strategy, which was established by Colonel Sun Baowei (孙 保卫, * 1953), party secretary (a kind of works council chairman ) of the center from 2000 to 2006 . Every year, some of the young executives are sent to Tsinghua University , the Beijing Aerospace University , etc. for further training , where they then inspire the young fellow students for a career in the Strategic Combat Support Force through their stories about manned space travel. Since the Beijing Space Control Center, although operated by the military, serves exclusively civil purposes - the military reconnaissance and navigation satellites are looked after by the Xi'an Satellite Control Center - nothing is secret there; The engineers working there received a total of 22 patents by 2016 on technologies they had developed for high-precision orbit control, rendezvous maneuvers, etc. and continuously publish articles in specialist journals such as the “Zeitschrift für Tiefraumerkundung”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 孙 竞: 李剑 ： 测控 通信 系统 的 关键 技术 得到 验证 和 突破. In: scitech.people.com.cn. November 18, 2016, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ 中国 170 颗 卫星 已 在 太空 运行 将 造 500G 带宽 高 通量 卫星. In: mil.news.sina.com.cn. September 13, 2017, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  3. ↑ 中国 载人 航天 工程 简介. In: cmse.gov.cn. April 23, 2011, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  4. ↑ 吴耀谦: 中国 载人 航天 工程 办公室 换帅 ， 余 同 杰 接棒 王兆耀. In: thepaper.cn. March 31, 2015, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  5. ↑ 姜 宁 、 王婷 、 祁登峰: 梦想 绽放 九天 上 —— 北京 航天 飞行 控制 中心 创新 发展 记事. In: xinhuanet.com. April 11, 2016, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  6. ↑ 周 雁: 寄语 神舟 一号 祝福 载人 航天. In: cmse.gov.cn. November 20, 2019, accessed November 24, 2019 (Chinese). The video shows the groundbreaking ceremony at 12:14 am.
  7. ↑ 王君: 胡锦涛 等 来到 北京 航天 飞行 控制 中心 观看 发射 实况. In: cnr.cn. October 12, 2005, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  8. ↑ 晓星: 胡锦涛 同 “神舟” 六号 航天 员 亲切 通话. In: cctv.com. October 15, 2005, accessed May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  9. ↑ 李真 、 肖志涛 、 白 杰戈: 胡锦涛 在 北京 航天 飞行 控制 中心 同 神州 九号 航天 员 通话. In: china.cnr.cn. June 27, 2012, Retrieved May 30, 2019 (Chinese). President Hu Jintao is speaking to the crew of the Tiangong 1 space station from the control room commander's workstation . Behind him, separated by a soundproof pane of glass, his successor Xi Jinping and today's Prime Minister Li Keqiang , who in 2012 were still in the second row of the Chinese leadership.
  10. ↑ 岚 子: 气象 实况 播报. In: china.com.cn. November 14, 2007, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  11. ↑ a b 付毅飞: 我国 首次 火星 探测 任务 将 采用 新一代 飞 控 系统. In: thepaper.cn. July 18, 2020, accessed July 18, 2020 (Chinese).
  12. ↑ 陈 略 et al .: 高精度 UT1-UTC 差分 预报 方法 研究. In: jdse.bit.edu.cn. Retrieved May 31, 2019 (Chinese).
  13. ↑ 许雪晴. In: shao.ac.cn. Retrieved May 31, 2019 (Chinese).
  14. ↑ 唐 歌 实 et al .: 基于 CE-3 的 无线电 测 月 研究. In: jdse.bit.edu.cn. Retrieved May 31, 2019 (Chinese).
  15. ↑ 董光亮 et al .: 中国 深 空 测控 系统 建设 与 技术 发展. In: jdse.bit.edu.cn. March 5, 2018, accessed July 18, 2020 (Chinese).
  16. ↑ 郭超凯 、 吕炳宏 、 王晓 学: 备战 中国 首次 火星 探测 西安 卫星 测控 中心 完成 适应性 改造. In: chinanews.com. July 17, 2020, accessed July 18, 2020 (Chinese).
  17. ↑ 岚 子: 飞 控 大厅 中 的 电脑 实时 显示 气象 情况. In: china.com.cn. November 14, 2007, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  18. ↑ 岚 子: 北京 飞 控 中心 飞 控 大厅 飞 控 监视 区. In: china.com.cn. November 14, 2007, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  19. ↑ 岚 子: 嫦娥 一号 完美 飞行. In: china.com.cn. November 14, 2007, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  20. ↑ 岚 子: 指令 从 这里 发出. In: china.com.cn. November 14, 2007, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  21. ↑ 岚 子: 核对 数据. In: china.com.cn. November 14, 2007, Retrieved May 29, 2019 (Chinese).
  22. ^ ESA Tracking Support Essential to Chinese Mission. In: esa.int. October 26, 2007, accessed May 29, 2019 .
  23. ↑ 唐文俊: 走近 中国 载人 飞船 的 “神经中枢”. In: news.sina.com.cn. October 21, 2003, accessed May 30, 2019 (Chinese).
  24. ↑ 张志宇: 航天 控制 中心 揭秘 ： 神舟 1 号 曾 在 返程 中 出现 险情. In: news.sina.com.cn. March 25, 2005, Retrieved May 30, 2019 (Chinese).
  25. ↑ 中国 军工 系统 核心 部门. In: lt.cjdby.net. July 1, 2014, accessed May 30, 2019 (Chinese).
  26. ↑ 王晓刚: 中国 航天 基金会 高级 文化 顾问 孙 保卫 少将 谈 航天 人才 培养. In: uestc.edu.cn. November 17, 2014, accessed May 30, 2019 (Chinese).
  27. ↑ 姜 宁 、 王婷 、 祁登峰: 梦想 绽放 九天 上 —— 北京 航天 飞行 控制 中心 创新 发展 记事. In: xinhuanet.com. April 11, 2016, Retrieved May 30, 2019 (Chinese).
  28. ↑ 王 美 et al .: 深 空 测控 网 干涉 测量 系统 在 “鹊桥” 任务 中 的 应用 分析. In: jdse.bit.edu.cn. Retrieved May 30, 2019 (Chinese).

Coordinates: 40 ° 4 ′ 19.8 ″  N , 116 ° 15 ′ 25 ″  E