Wu Weiren

Wu Weiren ( Chinese  吳偉仁  /  吴伟仁 , Pinyin Wú Wěirén , born October 25, 1953 in Desheng, Sichuan Province ) is a Chinese communications engineer. Since 2010 he has been the chief planner for the technical aspects of the Chinese lunar missions at the Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Projects of the China National Space Administration . On June 3, 2020, was asteroid of the outer main belt 281 880, also known as 2010 GK ₁₂₆ , named after him.

Youth and Studies

Wu Weiren was on 25 October 1953 in the greater community Desheng (得胜镇), in the north of the circle Pingchang the province of Sichuan born when the eldest of six children in a poor farming family. From September 1960 he attended the primary school of the Tuanjie Production Brigade (团结 大队 小学) in Desheng (this was the time of the people's communes ). The area in the southern foothills of the Daba Shan , at an altitude of more than 800 m above sea level, is not really suitable for agriculture due to its steep slopes. Life there was difficult, and after school, Wu Weiren, as the eldest son, had to regularly supervise the cattle of the production group in the high pastures or help with the hay making in order to generate a few jobs for his parents so that the family would be allocated a little more when the next grain rations were distributed has been.

In 1966, while he was attending secondary school, where he already stood out for his very good grades in mathematics, physics and chemistry and was elected class representative, the Cultural Revolution broke out. There were no more classes, the pupils were only concerned with preparing for and participating in demonstrations, company visits, etc. This delayed his training. It was not until 1971, when he was almost 18 years old, that Wu began attending Pingchang High School, where he became Chairman of the Student Council (校 学生会) and Deputy Secretary of the School Committee of the Communist Youth Association of China (共青团 委员会) after the chaos in the early years the Cultural Revolution had just resumed its work. After graduating from high school, Wu Weiren began studying remote sensing and remote control in the then Faculty of Telecommunications at the Chinese University of Science and Technology in Hefei in September 1975 , where he graduated in November 1978.

Aerospace engineer

Immediately after earning his engineering degree, in November 1978, Wu Weiren began working at the Beijing Research Institute for Remote Sensing Technology (北京 遥测 技术 研究所) of the then Seventh Ministry of Mechanical Engineering , from the beginning as head of a project group (工程 组长). It was there that he met his future wife, Cong Xiurong (丛 eine), also a communications engineer who specializes in remote sensing. The Seventh Ministry was renamed "Ministry of Space Industry" in 1982, merged with the Ministry of Aerospace Industry to form the "Ministry of Aerospace Industry" in April 1988 and the space activities were outsourced in March 1993 as the "Parent Company for Space Industry". Wu Weiren for the entire time at the Research Institute for Remote Sensing Technology, from October 1989 as deputy laboratory manager, from October 1991 as laboratory manager and from December 1994 as deputy institute manager.

After Wu Weiren worked from August 1997 to July 1998 in Factory 210 of the umbrella company for the space industry, he switched to the Science, Technology and Industry Commission for National Defense , where he was initially deputy head of the Science and Technology Department (科技 司), then head of department. During this time, from June 2001 to June 2004, he studied electrical engineering as a doctoral candidate at the University of Science and Technology Central China in Wuhan and graduated with a doctorate.

Lunar program

When the Defense Technology Commission was dissolved on March 15, 2008 and transferred to the National Authority for Science, Technology and Industry in National Defense , he stayed with the new authority. In August 2008 he started to work at the Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Projects (探 月 与 航天 工程 中心) operated by the latter together with the National Space Agency . At that time, in addition to looking after the Chang'e-1 lunar orbiter, the center was busy preparing for the Chang'e-2 successor mission . Under his responsibility, the TT&C system was converted from the unified S-band or USB technology , which has been in use since the Apollo times, to the higher-frequency X-band . On June 2, 2010, four months before the start of Chang'e-2, Wu Weiren succeeded Sun Jiadong (孙家栋, * 1929) as Technical Director of the Lunar Program (探 月 工程 总设计师).

This made him the engineering equivalent of the geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan and his successor, the astrophysicist Yan Jun , who as chief scientist (月球 应用 科学 首席 科学家) were responsible for planning the scientific aspects, i.e. for the payloads of the probes. It was Wu Weiren who, in the summer of 2011, when Chang'e-2 was still fully operational at the end of its expected lifespan, had the idea to first take the probe to the L ₂ Lagrangian point of the sun-earth system, then to the near-Earth asteroid (4179 ) Toutatis and then fly into interplanetary space. China gained valuable experience in the operation of a deep space probe.

While the engineers at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology are preparing the Chang'e-5 return probe for its mission - the launch was scheduled for the end of 2020 - the staff at the Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Projects are already busy planning future ventures. Since 2019, Wu Weiren has been working with his colleagues from the Russian space agency Roskosmos (he learned Russian instead of English at high school) on a joint mission between the lunar lander Chang'e-7 and the Russian orbiter Luna-26 , in which both probes - probably in the middle of the 2020s - should proceed in a coordinated manner and support one another.

On June 11, 2020, Wu Weiren was selected by the International Astronautical Federation together with Yu Dengyun , the deputy technical director of the lunar program, and Sun Zezhou , the chief designer of the Chang'e-4 probe , for the world's first landing on the back of the moon World Space Award presented.

Teaching

Until the reform of the organs of the State Council adopted by the National People's Congress on March 15, 2008, the Beijing Technical University , as well as eight other universities with a technical orientation, were subordinate to the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (afterwards most of them to the Ministry of Industry and information technology ). At the beginning of 2001, when he was head of the science and technology department there, Wu Weiren and the Institute for Aerospace Technology (宇航 学院) initiated a collaboration on research projects on the subject of deep space exploration. After becoming chief planner at the Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Projects in 2010, he took on the position of professor (研究员) as a science councilor, supervising doctoral students at the university. These were integrated into real projects at the center and contributed with dissertations on topics such as "Optimizing the trajectory of a transport capsule starting from the moon's surface" (Liu Wangwang 2014) or "Optimizing the parameters for a drilling mechanism for collecting soil samples on the moon" (Wang Lili 2015) specifically contributes to the success of the missions. After Wu Weiren was appointed to the Chinese Academy of Engineering in December 2015 , he was hired as a full professor at Beijing Technical University on September 7, 2016.

In addition, Wu Weiren has been supervising students at the Beijing Aerospace University since 2001 and teaches at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (“Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences” until 2012) and the University of Electrical Engineering and Electronics in Chengdu . Wu Weiren has been editor-in-chief of the “Zeitschrift für Tiefraumerkundung” (深 空 探测 学报) published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology since it was founded in 2014 .

Political commitment

Since January 2018, Wu Weiren has been a member of the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People as a non-association representative of the "Scientific and Technical Circles" (dieser 技术) , with 112 out of 2158 members, one of the strongest parliamentary groups in this representation. He is also one of 298 members of the Standing Committee of the Consultative Conference, which, unlike the General Assembly, which meets only once a year, meets every two weeks, in addition for special sessions when special bills have to be prepared.

Works

In addition to a large number of scientific articles, Wu Weiren also wrote several books:

• 月球 上 的 第 一批 人 [The first people on the moon]. 花山 文艺 出版社, 石家庄 1983.
• 国防 科技 工业 知识产权 实务 [Practical guide for applying for scientific and technical patents in the defense sector ]. 知识产权 出版社, 北京 2005.
• 军工 制造业 数字 化 [Digitization in the defense industry]. 原子能 出版社, 北京 2005.
• 奔向 月球 [ Off to the moon]. 中国 宇航 出版社, 北京 2007.
• 神舟 飞船 和 探 月 工程 [The Shenzhou spaceships and the lunar program ]. 五洲 传播 出版社, 北京 2008.
• Shenzhou spacecraft and lunar exploration project: China's space exploration (translation by Ma Chenguang, Yan Shuang and Zhang Hongpeng). China Intercontinental Press, Beijing 2008.
• 深 空 探测器 自主 导航 原理 与 技术 [Principle and technology of the automatic navigation of deep space probes]. 中国 宇航 出版社, 北京 2011.
• 绕 月 探测 卫星 飞行 控制 [Flight control of a moon orbiter]. 中国 宇航 出版社, 北京 2012.
• 深 空 测控 通信 系统工程 与 技术 [Construction and technology of TT&C systems for deep space missions]. 科学 出版社, 北京 2013.

Web links

• Website of the Institute of Aerospace Technology at the TU Beijing (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 基本 信息. In: ysg.ckcest.cn. Retrieved July 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
2. ↑ 近代 中國 著名 漫畫家 豐子愷 和 三位 科學家 獲 小行星 命名. In: hkas.org.hk. June 16, 2020, accessed June 19, 2020 (Chinese). 
3. ↑ (281880) Wuweiren = 2004 BL74 = 2004 DP25 = 2010 GK126 = 2011 JM1. In: minorplanetcenter.net. Retrieved June 19, 2020 (English). 
4. ↑ Compare the youth of Zhang Bainan , today chief designer of the manned spaceships in China, in highly industrialized Manchuria .
5. ↑ 嘉陵: 从 生产 队长 到 探 月 总设计师. In: news.ustc.edu.cn. November 11, 2010, Retrieved July 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
6. ↑ 主要 学历. In: ysg.ckcest.cn. Retrieved July 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
7. ↑ 蓬 人 、 丛 秀荣: 《遥测 系统》 简介. In: cnki.com.cn. Retrieved July 29, 2019 (Chinese). 
8. ↑ 陈伟 、 杨丽 可 、 李 果: 电子 科技 大学 隆重 庆祝 建校 60 周年. In: chengdu.baogaosu.com. September 30, 2016, Retrieved July 29, 2019 (Chinese). 
9. ↑ 主要 经历. In: ysg.ckcest.cn. Retrieved July 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
10. ↑ 裴 照 宇 et al .: 嫦娥 工程 技术 发展 路线. In: jdse.bit.edu.cn. June 2, 2015, Retrieved July 29, 2019 (Chinese). 
11. ↑ 嘉陵: 从 生产 队长 到 探 月 总设计师. In: news.ustc.edu.cn. November 11, 2010, Retrieved July 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
12. ↑ 基本 信息. In: ysg.ckcest.cn. Retrieved July 29, 2019 (Chinese). 
13. ↑ 荆 淮 侨 、 董瑞丰: 中 俄欧 将 联合 开展 国际 月球 科研 站 论证. In: xinhuanet.com. July 22, 2019, Retrieved July 29, 2019 (Chinese). 
14. ↑ 俄 国家 航天 集团 ： 俄 中 两国 将于 秋季 开始 确定 联合 月球 基地 任务. In: 3g.163.com. August 10, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020 (Chinese). 
15. ↑ 嫦娥 四号 任务 团队 优秀 代表 首 获 国际 宇航 联合会 世界 航天 最高 奖. In: tech.sina.com.cn. June 11, 2020, accessed August 10, 2020 (Chinese). 
16. ↑ 2020 IAF Award Recipients. In: iafastro.org. Accessed August 10, 2020 (English). 
17. ↑ 郭强: 北京 理工 大学 举行 吴伟仁 院士 聘任 仪式. In: bit.edu.cn. September 7, 2016, Retrieved July 29, 2019 (Chinese). 
18. ↑ 李 果: 探 月 工程 总设计师 吴伟仁 院士 加盟 我 校. In: news.uestc.edu.cn. April 19, 2017, Retrieved July 30, 2019 (Chinese). 
19. ↑ 高 莎: 《深 空 探测 学报》 第一 届 编委会 换届 暨 深 空 科技 发展 座谈会 在 北 理工 召开. In: bit.edu.cn. July 17, 2017, Retrieved July 30, 2019 (Chinese). 
20. ↑ 《深 空 探测 学报》 第二 届 编委会 名单. In: jdse.bit.edu.cn. Retrieved July 30, 2019 (Chinese). 
21. ↑ 中国 人民 政治协商会议 第十 三届 全国 委员会 委员 名单. In: gov.cn. January 25, 2018, accessed June 13, 2020 (Chinese). 
22. ↑ 中国 人民 政治协商会议 第十 三届 全国 委员会 常务委员 名单. In: cppcc.gov.cn. March 14, 2018, Retrieved July 30, 2019 (Chinese). 
23. ↑ 全国 政协 常委会 工作 报告. In: cppcc.gov.cn. March 3, 2019, Retrieved July 30, 2019 (Chinese). 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Wu is the family name here, Weiren is the first name.