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September 23, the 64th International Astronautical Congress opened in Beijing. The experts and scholars in the international aerospace community got together in this global event of the industry, talking with each other about the future development of aerospace, and looked forward to utilizing aerospace technology to bring benefit to mankind.
The aerospace technology seems to be mysterious and distant for ordinary people. One might never expect that batch after batch of space technologies at hand have been bringing down-to-earth benefits to the people’s livelihood and work in peace and contentment. As a main force of China's space industry, CASIC has been serving the social development and national economic construction in many fields based on its space technology and the achievement transformation using the system engineering technology and management as the carrier.
Helping the Shenzhou Balance in Space and Performing Exploration in the Stratum
Whenever the Shenzhou spacecraft flying into the vast space, transferring orbits time and time again, approaching the silver ‘Tiangong’ slowly, there is a black box which is undertaking to help the Shenzhou ‘balance’. This device is just like the elfin closest to the Shenzhou heart, sensing a slight acceleration which human body cannot feel but is vital to the two aircrafts approaching slowly in the universe. The black box is high-precision accelerometer device developed by CASIC.
As a ‘veteran’ part of the Shenzhou spacecraft series, the device had ‘perfect’ performance in every flight mission and created the immortal myth which the device operated from the Shenzhou-1 to Shenzhou-10 and succeeded all of them. In addition, the advanced technology of the same strain enables it to go into space and to enter into the stratum. The high-precision accelerometers mounted on the Shenzhou spacecraft series can be used widely in both geotechnical engineering and oil instruments. The series products consist of the fixed inclinometer, sliding inclinometer, gyro inclinometer-while-drilling system and wireless inclinometer-while-drilling system.
The fixed inclinometer is a high-precision ‘monitor’ to check the danger of geological survey. It can be used for monitoring and early warning of geological disasters, and this can significantly reduce loss of life and property caused by earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, tailings and reservoirs failure and other serious disasters. The fixed inclinometers developed by CASIC had been successively applied to the Ya'an geological disaster warning demonstration zone in Sichuan by the Ministry of Land and Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing Jietaisi landslide monitoring demonstration project, and Xinyuan mountainous pasture landslide monitoring demonstration area project in Xinjiang. The technological level of the products stays ahead in the industry. The products use several original core technologies and processes and have obtained a number of invention patents and utility model patents.
The sliding inclinometer is well- known for its successful application to the emergency monitoring of the ultrahigh dam body (150 meters high) of the Tangjiashan dammed lake caused by the Wenchuan earthquake. The products are widely used for internal horizontal displacement observation and subgrade section settlement observation in earth and rockfill dams, dikes, geotechnical slopes, building foundations, mines, excavation of foundation pits and underground structural engineering. The products have played an important role in the foundation at the Hankou Railway Station, the engineering monitoring of excavation of foundation pits of the Shanghai World Financial Center and the subgrade section settlement monitoring of the Yueyang section of the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway.
Software Testing and Evaluation Services Ensuring Accurate and Reliable Operation
Both ingenious designers and rigorous and careful development and production and over-and-over and day-by-day carpet test verification and testing lead to so accurate and reliable technical products of the manned space flight project. As we know it is thousands of ground tests that ensure the final success of the spacecraft in space.
Now, the software testing and evaluation system developed by CASIC is like a software ‘inspector’ of spacecraft. The system has been applied to independent testing and evaluation of dozens of software version and hundreds of thousands of lines of source program for several flight tests, providing one almost demanding testing standard and hypothetical condition after another for software design, so that the coverage of the software functional test can reach 100%, the software statement test can approach 100% and the return-to-zero in the software problem can achieve 100%, sparing no effort to ensure the Shenzhou-10 to completes the earth-space-earth roundtrip.
Of course, such a reliable aerospace software testing technique is not limited to be applied to the distant space. In addition to convoying the Shenzhou spacecraft, CASIC is also actively developing the civilian software testing and evaluation market to make contribution to the benefit of the society and the people's livelihood.
Early 2013, CASIC undertook the testing and evaluation of the temporary speed restriction server software for high-speed rail trains, the passenger train control center software and the simulation testing station software, performing a comprehensive ‘physical examination’ on the accuracy and security of each software, so that these critical software can operate stably to provide a reliable guarantee for personal safety of the passengers.
In addition, CASIC also signed a long-term cooperation agreement with the Haier to provide software testing and evaluation services for the control software of its high-end models of washing machines. CASIC has carried out the static analysis, code inspection, construction of test platform structures, dynamic testing and other on the relevant control software and given a comprehensive analysis on the software’s accuracy and security during the test procedure to promote the aerospace software testing and evaluation technique to go into the homes of the populace gradually.
Beidou Emergency Rescue Handheld Terminals Escorting the Travelers
The independently-built and independently-operated Beidou satellite navigation system has formally provided continuous passive positioning, navigation, timing and other service to most parts of the Asia-Pacific Since December 27, 2012, laying a foundation for the Beidou satellite navigation system to develop in civilian areas.
With the rapid development of outdoor sports in China, the travelers have already started to set foot in some more challenging and dangerous tourist projects. To guarantee the safety of the travelers on tour, the No. 1 Academy of CASIC has developed the emergency rescue products based on the Beidou satellite navigation system to meet their needs. The volume of the handheld terminal is slightly larger than that of a common cell phone. It weighs 270 grams but will not add overmuch burden to the travelers. However, it costs only half of a satellite phone. It can be used unlimitedly throughout a year by paying an annual fee about 600 yuan. In addition, it can operate for 80 consecutive hours, search the satellite in two seconds and locate within 10 m. Therefore, it gets the favor from the masses of users so that it becomes a visible, tangible, affordable ‘Beidou’ of common people.
Earlier this year, it was under escort of this Beidou emergency rescue handheld terminal product that Xu Jingkun, an one-armed follower, drove his Dream sailboat southward, departing from the Dandong port, along China’s coastline, arriving at the Sansha city (the latest city of China), and completed the magnificent feat of sailing around China. The success of this actual application allows the Beidou emergency rescue handheld terminal product to attract tremendous attention.
Beidou Vehicle Networking Project Opening New Areas of Intelligent Transportation System
China has become the largest auto market in the world, resulting in a series of traffic problems. The contradiction has become increasingly prominent in urban development. It is very difficult to solve the traffic problems well in short term by improving the traffic network or BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). As a result, developing vigorously intelligent transport is the optimal decision to solve the traffic problems and to promote construction of the smart city.
The Beidou vehicle networking project is helping the development of China's intelligent transportation. Depending on the aerospace high-tech advantages, based on a series of independent R&D products, such as intelligent vehicle terminals, the purpose of the project is to achieve the real-time monitoring and supervision of regional operating vehicles and the large-scale applications of the Beidou satellite technology at the provincial level and even throughout the country.
The Beidou vehicle networking project is oriented to the regional operating vehicles at the provincial-level. The operating vehicles should be equipped with the intelligent vehicle terminals based on the Beidou satellite positioning system in accordance with the national standards and/or the ministerial standards, so as to achieve such functions as serving supervision of road vehicles by governments, serving transportation enterprise operation and management and serving owners’ driving needs through the data center and back-stage management service platform to make traffic safer, livelihood more convenient and living environment more livable.
Up to now, CASIC has established strategic cooperative relations with Jiangxi, Anhui, Shanxi, Fujian, Tianjin and other province/city, and achieved operation services in Jiangxi other province/city.
Under the guidance of the development concept of the ‘Macro-defense and Macro- security’, CASIC will continue to give play to the advantages of aerospace technology, and actively seek broad international cooperation to make new and greater contributions to the exploration of the universe, the application of space technology and peaceful use of outer space and the benefit of human society.
