President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspects the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in South China's Hainan province, April 12, 2022. Xi inspected the launch site on Tuesday and extended greetings to all the staff stationed at the site. [Photo/Xinhua]
Through this tour, Xi has completed his inspections of all of China's space launch facilities.
In February 2013, he visited the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which was his first inspection of a Chinese space launch base following his election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
In June 2017, he inspected the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province, and he visited the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in February 2018.
After years of selection and discussion, the central government decided to build a launch site in Wenchang, Hainan province, in 2007.
Construction work started in September 2009 and was completed in October 2014. The first launch at the facility took place in June 2016 with the debut of the Long March 7 rocket.
Covering about 12 square kilometers, the equivalent of 1,700 soccer fields, the center is tasked with launching heavyweight satellites, deep-space probes, and components of the Tiangong space station.
The biggest advantage of the facility is its low latitude－only 19 degrees north of the equator, which enables rockets to save considerable fuel and to carry heavier payloads, compared with launches from the other three centers in China.
So far, the Wenchang center has serviced 16 launch missions. It is the only launch facility in China capable of launching Long March 5-series rockets, the biggest and most powerful in the country's rocket fleet.
China's Chang'e 5 lunar probe, the Tianwen 1 Mars explorer and the Tiangong space station's core module were all launched from the facility.
Overview
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