U.S. is given first look at Chinese space complex

U.S. is given first look at Chinese space complex

Nation plans station, moon flight

Associated Press

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Beijing — It may look like Mission Control in Houston, but this space complex had been hidden from the world until Wednesday — when U.S. officials got their first look at the command center that recently sent China’s first manned flight into orbit and back.

“Congratulations. You’ve had a great success,” Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Chinese space program officials during his 40-minute tour of the facility.

Like its storied U.S. counterpart at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, Beijing Aerospace Control Center appears to be the technical, and perhaps inspirational, linchpin of its country’s space program.

One banner there reads, “Realize the complete success of the first manned space mission.”

On Oct. 15, the space center did precisely that. After blasting off from the Gobi Desert, Col. Yang Liwei orbited Earth several times in a modified Russian Soyuz capsule before landing safely inside China’s borders. The mission catapulted China onto the short list of countries — Russia and the United States — with manned spaceflight programs.

Beijing also envisions grander plans — for a space station and a lunar base. China has announced a second manned mission to take place by 2005.

When the space control center is running — it appeared almost deserted Wednesday — an operator at each station monitors one of the subsystems of the Chinese spacecraft. The central main screen has a world map with an overlay of the spacecraft’s orbit. Rows of workstations, each with a Dell computer monitor, sit before the three big wall screens.

Until now, no foreign delegation had been allowed inside the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. A small group of reporters accompanied Myers but was not allowed to take photographs.