Harbin, February 27 (Xinhua) -- The space environment ground simulation device jointly built by Harbin Institute of Technology and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation passed acceptance in Harbin on February 27. This is the first major national scientific and technological infrastructure in China's aerospace field.
This is the Moon Dust Chamber, a ground simulation device for the space environment (taken on April 6, 2023). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Song.
The space environment ground simulation device, known as the "ground space station", is one of the major national scientific and technological infrastructures that began to be built during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period. It can simulate nine types of space environmental factors, including vacuum, high and low temperature, charged particles, electromagnetic radiation, space dust, plasma, weak magnetic field, neutral gas, and microgravity, aiming to focus on major basic scientific and technological problems in the field of aerospace and build a large-scale research base in the field of space comprehensive environment and spacecraft, life and plasma interaction.
This means that many of the future experiments that need to be carried out in space can be done on the ground. Li Liyi, executive deputy commander of the space environment ground simulation device and dean of the Institute of Space Environment and Physical Science of Harbin Institute of Technology, said that the project construction adheres to independent innovation, breaks through a series of key technologies, and all systems have been put into trial operation and open sharing, serving a number of user units at home and abroad, supporting the implementation of a series of major national space missions in China, and achieving a number of landmark results.
The National Acceptance Committee, co-directed by Xu Nanping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of Suzhou Laboratory, believes that the project has broken through a series of key technologies in the field of space environment simulation and its interaction with matter, the overall construction indicators of the project are at the international advanced level, some key technical indicators are at the international leading level, the operation of the device has achieved outstanding results, and the scientific and technological and social benefits are remarkable, and it has been agreed to pass the national acceptance.
On February 27, the site of the national acceptance meeting of the national major scientific and technological infrastructure project of the space environment ground simulation device. (Photo courtesy of Harbin Institute of Technology).
Han Jiecai, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Harbin Institute of Technology, said that the device is of great significance to China's major scientific and technological innovation breakthroughs, industrial transformation and upgrading, and high-end talent cultivation. In the future, the school will continue to optimize the technical indicators of the device, continue to improve the scientific level of the device, accelerate the formation of more independent intellectual property technologies, and make new contributions to China's major leap from a space power to a space power.