If you want to ask, what is the biggest feature of "China's Sky Eye"? Apart from scientific value, it may be summarized in six words: Dare to innovate, can innovate "No one tells you how to do it, and no one has grasped their own methods.

If you want to ask, what is the biggest feature of " China Sky Eye "? Apart from scientific value, it may be summarized in six words: Dare to innovate, be able to innovate

"No one tells you what to do, and no one has grasped their own methods." The difficult problem of repeated trials, repeated failures, and more courageous challenges almost run through every link in the construction stage of FAST

"China's Sky Eye" has the largest and most sensitive characteristics in the world, and has stimulated many special technical needs. Chinese scientists need to give full play to their subjective initiative and creativity, and optimize and upgrade

in the continuous "challenging cognitive and technical limits" and constantly "discovering and solving problems"

年后公司 | "Outlook" News Weekly reporter Pan Dexin European and Eastern Qu

Chinese scientists recently used the "China Sky Eye" FAST to conduct in-depth observations of a fast radio burst located outside the Milky Way galaxy. For the first time, the magnetic field changes in the surrounding environment, which is only 1 astronomical unit (i.e. the distance from the sun to the earth), took an important step towards revealing the engine mechanism of the fast radio burst center.

This research was completed by the "China Sky Eye" FAST fast radio burst priority and major project scientific research team. The relevant results were published in the international academic journal " Nature " on September 21.

year observation time exceeds 5,300 hours, and its operating efficiency and quality are constantly improving; more than 660 new pulsars were discovered, entering the period of the results explosion; the only repeated rapid radio burst FRB20190520B that has been continuously active so far was discovered, and it was located at dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away from us; Chinese scientists used the measurement results obtained by the "China Sky Eye" FAST to provide important observation evidence for solving the " magnetic flux problem", one of the three classic problems of star formation...

In recent years, 500-meter diameter spherical radio telescope (hereinafter referred to as "China Sky Eye" or FAST) located in Dawotang, Pingtang County, Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou Province, has frequently heard good news that shocked the world. This "Sky-Viewing Eye" continues to produce results in the directions of rapid radio burst origin and physical mechanism, research on neutral hydrogen universe, pulsar search and physics research, pulsar time measurement and low-frequency gravitational wave detection, expanding the limits of human vision for observing the universe.

Comprehensively build a modern socialist country , we must adhere to science and technology first and give full play to the key and backbone role of scientific and technological innovation. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to uphold the core position of innovation in the overall situation of my country's modernization construction and take scientific and technological self-reliance as the strategic support for national development.

"China Sky Eye" has achieved a major original breakthrough in the field of cutting-edge science and technology in my country and is a model of my country's scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement.

20 years ago, a group of Chinese scientists, with their ambition of "daring to be the first in the world", allowed the "Chinese Sky Eye" which seemed to be a "castle in the sky" to finally stand among the mountains of Guizhou without any ready-made experience in the world.

In this process, the tenacity of "holding on to the green mountains and not relaxing", the fighting spirit of "not returning until Loulan is destroyed", and the spirit of "flatrating the bumps and becoming a road" are inseparable from the strength accumulated by China over the years of development. From site selection, construction, debugging, and operation, every link, every panel, and every line of code of the "China Sky Eye" embodies Chinese wisdom and Chinese creation.

key core technologies cannot be obtained, cannot be bought, or begged for. Without self-reliance and self-improvement in scientific and technological innovation, it is difficult to master key core technologies, and they are destined to be controlled by others forever and can only follow each other.

In recent years, major scientific and technological projects represented by "China's Sky Eye" have been constantly refreshing the height of my country's scientific and technological development. Behind Honor, it is closely related to the breakthroughs in a series of key core technologies. The source of breakthrough strength is deeply embedded in the innovative soil of self-reliance and self-improvement.

Nan Rendong (middle) and engineering and technical personnel inspected the construction progress at the construction site of Dawotang (photo taken on December 1, 2014) Photo provided by the National Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dare to climb the top first

If you want to ask, what is the biggest feature of "China's Sky Eye"? Apart from scientific value, it may be summarized in six words: Dare to innovate, be able to innovate.

500 meters in diameter, with a total area of ​​250,000 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of 30 standard football fields.

In the 1990s, when the "China Sky Eye" was proposed, it was so bold that it was a bit abrupt. At that time, the largest radio telescope in China was less than 30 meters in diameter. The "Chinese Sky Eye" with a diameter of 500 meters can expand the inspection target of solar-like stars by at least 5 times.

can only have more ambitions. In order to enable humans to explore more unknown celestial bodies, unknown cosmic phenomena, and unknown cosmic laws, and to narrow the gap between China and the world's advanced level in the field of astronomy, scientists and engineers represented by Nan Rendong, Jiang Peng , resolutely undertake this task that many people think is "impossible".

's unique scientific project, without experience, is destined to face unprecedented challenges.

In March 2011, the construction of "China Sky Eye" officially started. In order to speed up the construction period, the excavation of the site and the design and testing of the components of the device itself were carried out simultaneously. Reflective panels such as the "retina" of "Chinese Sky Eye", while the cable net is the "nervous system" that supports the "retina". Although the "China Sky Eye" reflective panel is only 1 mm thick, it also requires more than 2,000 tons of aluminum alloy. Its cable mesh structure is the world's largest span, highest accuracy, and the most special working method. Its requirements for fatigue resistance are extremely high, and existing steel cables are underestimated. Jiang Peng, executive deputy director and chief engineer of

FAST Operation and Development Center, led a group of young people to conduct large-scale fatigue tests in two years. In nearly a hundred failures, I have continuously explored the key to solving the problem from the crowd, and finally conquered the ultra-high strength and repetitive stretching steel cable, and created the first active deformation reflective surface, allowing the telescope to cover the 40-degree zenith angle, successfully supporting the "retina" of the "Chinese Sky Eye".

"No one tells you how to do it, and no one can grasp their own methods." Jiang Peng told the reporter of "Ouwang" News Weekly that the difficult problem of "repeated trials, repeated failures, and more courageous as they setbacks" has almost run through every link in the FAST construction stage. During the construction stage, "China Sky Eye" won more than 10 national awards in more than 10 fields including steel structure, automation industry, machinery industry, innovative design, surveying and mapping geographic information technology, electromagnetic compatibility research and development, and construction engineering.

There is no shortcut to innovation, only dare to climb.

On September 25, 2016, the "China Sky Eye" was completed and opened, contributing to the global engineering community Chinese experience and innovative practices of large-scale scientific projects: a reflection surface composed of 4,450 reflection units; a 30-ton feed tank controlled by 6 steel cables can be positioned in real time within a scale of 140 meters and a scale of 206 meters; the measurement angle on the scale of 500 meters is accurate to 8 corner seconds; the ultra-high fatigue-resistant steel cable can reach a stress range of 500MPa under 2 million cycles, which is no precedent in the world.

rigorous and realistic development limits

was completed and put into use, and the construction party breathed a sigh of relief, but everyone in the FAST operation team knew in their hearts that the real challenge had just begun: the goal of "the world's largest" has been achieved, and it must be adjusted to "the world's most sensitive". The debugging of

telescopes is extremely challenging, and the debugging cycle of traditional telescopes generally takes at least four years. FAST debugging is more difficult, not only involves cross-applications of many disciplines and majors, but also poses huge security risks.

"When sleeping, if someone snores by the side, it will be difficult to fall asleep. The same is true for FAST. electromagnetic interference is like snoring by others. If it is not solved, it will not work properly." Gan Hengqian, director of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Department of the FAST Operation and Development Center, said that FAST is a huge system, and all live equipment will produce electromagnetic interference. If any interference is not controlled well, it will affect monitoring.

FASTSubstation will generate strong electromagnetic interference and need to install a high-voltage filter. I used the film capacitor before. This is a mature device that has been verified in many projects, but it is not possible to use it in FAST. Films that cannot withstand high voltage will be broken down.

Gan Hengqian said that when the problem was discovered, the debugging of the entire FAST had already begun. It was too late to find a solution to the problem with the manufacturer, and it was not necessary to find a solution. He could only make a breakthrough by himself.After nearly two years of exploration and experimentation, the traditional ceramic capacitor has been transformed into a penetrating capacitor, and the final filtering effect is particularly good.

"China Sky Eye" has the largest and most sensitive characteristics in the world, which has stimulated many special technical needs, and Chinese scientists need to give full play to their subjective initiative and creativity, and optimize and upgrade in the continuous "challenging cognitive and technological limits" and "discovering and solving problems". Another problem encountered in the debugging stage of

is the overturning and reconstruction of the control system. "After building blocks were built, I found that the parts could not be connected effectively, and the telescope could not operate efficiently according to the instructions of the general control." Sun Jinghai, director of the Measurement and Control Engineering Department of the FAST Operation and Development Center, said, "Simple repair cannot solve the problem. This system was developed by others, and we cannot control it. We must give up and change the system."

In order to develop a new control system as soon as possible, Sun Jinghai rewrites almost all the core algorithm codes alone. I can't remember how many nights I stayed in or how many meals I missed. He only had one idea in his mind: he should not delay the progress of the project debugging. Finally, during the formal testing, a control system tailored for FAST, all indicators passed at once.

reporter asked: "Are you sure to develop a new system at that time?" He said: "You are not sure that you will find a new path, but we are sure that the old path will not work."

has endless battles, and the contributions are not bad. After more than three years of hard debugging, the "China Sky Eye" passed the national acceptance on January 11, 2020. With the help of the ultra-high sensitivity of the "China Sky Eye", the National Observatory has increased the timing accuracy of the pulsar to about 50 times the world's original level, which may enable humans to have the ability to detect extremely low-frequency Nanachtz gravitational waves for the first time.

"Sky Eye" asks the sky, there is no end. Jiang Peng admitted that if he only regarded FAST as a telescope or a monitoring device, it had now met the standards. But to maintain FAST's world-leading position, our innovation cannot stop. We will do our best to make FAST more stable and operating efficiency better.

persistently explore the sky

The construction of "China's Sky Eye" is undoubtedly an advanced deployment full of strategic vision.

In the 1990s, when the international community was still debating how to build a new generation of large radio telescopes and where to build them, Chinese scientific and technological workers led by Nan Rendong proposed this extremely challenging and almost imaginative idea, and received national support.

"Independent construction", "Build using karst landforms" "Build while immature technology is researched and built." After Nan Rendong and others clarified these three points, they didn't even know where the karst pit where the telescope was going to settle, so they started working. Behind the seemingly "unreasonable" phenomenon is the urgent desire and responsibility of Chinese astronomers represented by Nan Rendong and others to narrow the gap with the world's advanced level.

Astronomy is a cutting-edge science that nurtures major original discoveries and is also a strategic commanding height for promoting scientific and technological progress and innovation. For major breakthroughs, the installation will come first. In the "Chaoyang Discipline" in the rising stage of development, whoever asks questions will master the trends of scientific development. Especially for experimental sciences such as astronomy, the theoretical research of predecessors is ahead, and the experimental verification of later generations is the key, which requires large scientific devices to be used. Only those who touch the telescope every day for observation can discover cutting-edge problems.

If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools. With sincerity in repaying the nation and the original intention of depicting the universe, Nan Rendong, who was active in the international astronomy world, resolutely returned to China in the 1990s, and insisted that China independently build a radio "big telescope".

Setting goals is not easy, and achieving goals is even more difficult.

The first challenge is to select a location. FAST's ideal construction site has extremely high requirements for terrain, geology, hydrology, etc. In order to find the most suitable "home" for the telescope, Nan Rendong, who was nearly 50 years old at the time, led his team to more than 300 satellite remote sensing images, sleeping in the open and running deep into the mountains of Guizhou. In 12 years, they have traveled almost all the karst depressions in Guizhou, and finally selected Dawotang, Pingtang County - the deep "eye socket" that is most suitable for the "sky eye".

Major scientific and technological innovations test not only scientific and technological strength, but also comprehensive national strength. A large amount of investment in people, money and materials has made major contemporary scientific and technological innovation a complex systematic project.

In 2007, the 5-kilometer range of "China Sky Eye" was defined as the core area, and the 30-kilometer range was defined as the electromagnetic wave quiet area. There were 1,410 households and 6,633 villagers in total moved out of the mountains.

Without the strong support and overall arrangements of the country, and without the institutional advantages of concentrating efforts to accomplish major tasks, there might not be today's "China's Sky Eye".

started site selection in 1994, started construction in 2011, and completed in 2016, China's scientific and technological workers have been trying their best for 22 years. The difficulties and challenges can be seen, and their strong will can be seen that this inexhaustible power is largely due to the unique advantages of socialist system with Chinese characteristics.

The courage to be the first, the pursuit of the ultimate perseverance and perseverance are not only the secret of the success of the "China Sky Eye", but also the only way for us to bravely climb the peak of world science and technology, accelerate the construction of a strong country in science and technology, and achieve scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement.

China's innovation is still constantly expanding the efficiency and vision of the "China Sky Eye". ■