China is beefing up its space monitoring network, and will
locate its central command system powered by sophisticated
homegrown technology in north China's Xi'an city, according to an
industry source.
"The orbit error of China's spacecraft can be reduced to a
little more than ten meters, compared to more than a hundred
kilometers when space technology in China was still
underdeveloped," Ce.cn, a Chinese economic portal website, quoted a
space expert as saying.
He said climactic conditions affect the landing of recoverable
satellites, meaning that vehicles may land several kilometers away
from the predicted landing site, making it difficult to carry out
post-landing satellite searches.
Since the "DFH" (Dongfanghong, or The East is Red)
telecommunications and broadcasting satellites were launched in
1970, nearly a hundred spacecrafts of different categories have
been sent into space by Chinese scientists.
A world-leading precise orbit calculation system, developed by
Chinese space engineer Wang Jiasong, won a European space award in
2002. The system can monitor satellites very accurately, according
to the space expert.
Chen Changgui, chief engineer of the Xi'an Satellite Monitoring
Command Center, said its satellite experts hook up on a
telecommuting system which enables them to monitor and diagnose
satellite malfunctions round the clock.
In its nearly 40 years of existence, the center has dealt with
more than a hundred satellite malfunctions through monitoring and
forecasting, said Chen.
Scientists at the center successfully recovered China's first
satellite re-entry module on Nov. 29, 1975 -- three days after its
launch -- making China the third country in the world to master the
technology, following the former Soviet Union and the United
States.
China has launched 22 recoverable satellites and got back 21 of
them after 30 years of space technological development.
(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2006)