China's Space Day: Quest of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center

April 24 marks China's Space Day which evolved from the same date back in the year 1970 when the country's first satellite, Dongfanghong-1 was sent into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.

The launch center has a history of more than six decades and has two old launch towers named Complex 5020 and 138, which were built in 1966 and 1971 respectively, and have carried out 44 missions since their completion.

The most famous of these missions are the Dongfanghong-1 satellite, the first returnable satellite, the first long-range carrier rocket, the first piggyback launch for foreign countries, and the one rocket with three satellites on board.

"These five launch missions are landmark events at the launch site. It can be said that every step of China's space progress has left its mark here," said Zhang Lixin, a staff member of the launch center.

Other launch towers were built later, including the sole one in China for manned space missions, which has been in operation for 25 years.

Since the first Shenzhou mission in 1999, the tower has successfully completed more than 20 launch missions, sending 20 Chinese astronauts safely into space on 32 trips.

"We overhaul and maintain this tower every year carefully and comprehensively. In the future, we need to improve the reliability of this tower, make intelligent upgrades and other related transformations to ensure the successful completion of the subsequent launch tasks," said Gao Minzhong, a senior staff member of the launch center.

And in the neighboring areas, there are launch complexes for commercial aerospace companies now.

Back in 2018, LandSpace launched its first rocket here. In the following years, more than 30 commercial rockets from six companies were launched from this area.

Several milestones were created here, such as Tianlong-2, the first commercial liquid-fuel rocket in China to reach earth orbit by Space Pioneer, and Zhuque-2, the world's first liquid oxygen methane-powered rocket to be put into orbit by LandSpace.

The first stage of take-off and landing tests for reusable commercial rockets by LandSpace and Interstellar Glory were carried out here.

Shortly, the companies hope to become the dynamic force of China's space exploration with the launch center as an important base.