China bolsters its ambitious space programme with the high-powered vision of a new antenna array

Three new radio telescopes added to Kashgar station to create a deep-space tracking facility for Chinese lunar and interplanetary missions

System is up and running two months after China denied contract extension for use of space tracking station in Western Australia

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China’s space ambitions have received a boost from the opening of a new deep-space antenna array system in the western province of Xinjiang. Four telescopes form an array capable of recording signals equivalent to a single 66-metre radio telescope, according to Chinese state media. Photo: Xinhua via AP

Published: 7:00am, 19 Nov 2020Updated: 7:54am, 19 Nov 2020

China has begun using a deep-space antenna array system from a ground station in Xinjiang, which it hopes will enhance its ability to navigate and explore space amid stiff competition from the United States.

Based in Kashgar, the westernmost corner of China, the system comprises four 35-metre (115-foot) diameter radio telescopes – three of them newly built – that form an array capable of recording signals equivalent to a single 66-metre radio telescope, China News Service reported.

The system has enhanced data-receiving sensitivity and can “provide powerful support to different kinds of deep-space explorations”, the report said.

The array system was established two months after the Swedish Space Corporation said it would not renew a contract with the China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General, which also runs the Kashgar station, to use a space tracking station in Western Australia, a move widely believed to undermine Beijing’s expanding space exploration and navigational capacity in the Pacific region.

While it is unclear when the lease runs out, the Swedish state-owned company said in September the decision was based on the “complexity of the Chinese market, brought about by the overall geopolitical situation”, adding that it would not seek new business with China, according to Reuters.

To support its lunar and interplanetary spacecraft missions, China has since 2012 built a deep-space network of large antennas and communication facilities. Besides Kashgar it has ground control stations in the eastern city of Qingdao and northeastern city of Jiamusi, and a third in Argentina’s Neuquen province.

It has also built 50-metre and 40-metre antennas, respectively, in Miyun, near Beijing, and the southwestern province of Yunnan.

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