Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC; also known as Shuangchengzi Missile Test Center; Launch Complex B2; formally Northwest Comprehensive Missile Testing Facility (); Base 20; 63600 Unit) is a Chinese
space vehicle launch facility (
spaceport) located in the
Gobi Desert
The Gobi Desert ( Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world.
Geography
The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast a ...
,
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
. It is part of the Dongfeng Aerospace City (Base 10). Although the facility is geographically located within
Ejin Banner of
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
's
Alxa League
Alxa League or Ālāshàn League (; mn, , Mongolian Cyrillic. Алшаа аймаг) is one of 12 prefecture level divisions and 3 extant leagues of Inner Mongolia. The league borders Mongolia to the north, Bayan Nur to the northeast, Wuha ...
, it is named after the nearest city,
Jiuquan
Jiuquan, formerly known as Suzhou, is a prefecture-level city in the northwesternmost part of Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. It is more than wide from east to west, occupying , although its built-up area is mostly located in i ...
in
Gansu Province
Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province.
The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...
. The launch center straddles both sides of the
Ruo Shui
Ejin River (), also Etsin Gol, Ruo Shui () or Ruo He in ancient times, is a major river system of northern China. It flows approximately from its headwaters on the northern Gansu side of the Qilian Mountains north-northeast into the endorheic ...
river.
History
It was founded in 1958, the first of China's four spaceports. As with all Chinese launch facilities, it is remote and generally closed to foreigners.
The Satellite Launch Center is a part of Dongfeng Space City (), also known as ''Base 10'' () or ''Dongfeng base'' (). The Dongfeng site also includes
People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) test flight facilities, a space museum and a so-called martyr's cemetery ().
JSLC is usually used to launch vehicles into lower and medium orbits with large orbital inclination angles, as well as testing medium to long-range
missiles. Its facilities are state of the art and provide support to every phase of a satellite launch campaign. The site includes the Technical Center, the Launch Complex, the Launch Control Center, the Mission Command and Control Center and various other logistical support systems.
The center covers 2800 km
2 and may have housing for as many as 20,000 people. The facilities and launch support equipment were likely modelled on Soviet counterparts and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
likely provided technical support to Jiuquan.
The launch center has been the focus of many of China's ventures into space, including their first
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
Dong Fang Hong I
in 1970, and their first
crewed space mission ''
Shenzhou 5
Shenzhou 5 (, see § Etymology) was the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on 15 October 2003. The Shenzhou spacecraft was launched on a Long March 2F launch vehicle. There had been four previous flig ...
'' on 15 October 2003. As of 2021, all Chinese crewed space flights, meaning all flights in the
Shenzhou program including crewed flights to the
Tiangong space station, have launched from Jiuquan.
In August 2016, China launched the first quantum communication satellite, the "
Quantum Experiments at Space Scale
Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS; ), is a Chinese research project in the field of quantum physics.
Tiangong-2 is China's second Space Laboratory module which was launched on 15 September 2016. Tiangong-2 carries a total of 14 mission an ...
", from the center.
In August 2018, Chinese private rocket manufacturing startups
i-Space and
OneSpace launched
sub-orbital
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...
rockets from the center. On July 25, 2019, the first Chinese private orbital launch took place from Jiuquan as I-Space launched their Hyberbola-1 rocket.
Launch pads
*
Launch Area 2, 2 launch pads:
** LA-2A:
CZ-1,
DF-3,
DF-5
The Dongfeng 5 () or DF-5 is a second-generation multistage rocket, two stage Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile. It has a length of 32.6 m and a diameter of 3.35 m. It weighs in at 183,000 kilograms and it has an estimated range of 12,00 ...
** LA-2B:
CZ-2A,
CZ-2C,
CZ-2D,
FB-1
The launch pads at Launch Area 2 are located at approximately 41.308833° north, 100.316512° east (north pad) and 41.306143° north, 100.313229° east (south pad).
*
Launch Area 3, 2 launch pads:
DF-1,
DF-2,
R-2.
Launch Area 3 is approximately 2.7 km south of Launch Area 2. The launch pads are located at approximately 41.283190° north, 100.304706° east (north pad) and 41.280457° north, 100.304582° east (south pad).
*
Launch Area 4 (South Launch Site), 2 launch pads, only active complex:
** SLS-1:
CZ-2F
The Long March 2F ( ''Changzheng 2F''), also known as the CZ-2F, LM-2F and Shenjian (, "Divine Arrow"), is a Chinese orbital carrier rocket, part of the Long March 2 rocket family. Designed to launch crewed Shenzhou spacecraft, the Long March ...
launcher with nearby
Vertical Assembly Facility.
** SLS-2: CZ-2C, CZ-2D, CZ-4B, CZ-4C and CZ-11, operational since 2003
Launch Area 4 is approximately 37.9 km south of Launch Area 3. The launch pads are located at approximately 40.960671° north, 100.298186° east (north pad) and 40.957893° north, 100.290944° east (south pad).
See also
*
Chinese space program
*
Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center
*
Wenchang Satellite Launch Center
*
Xichang Satellite Launch Center
References
External links
Base 20 Jiuquan Space Facilityon GlobalSecurity.org
{{Spaceport
Buildings and structures in Alxa League
Chinese space program facilities
Spaceports in China
Infrastructure completed in 1958
1958 establishments in China
Jiuquan
Rocket launch sites