Astronomers at the Yunnan Observatory under the National Astronomical Observatories at CAS have recently completed the main part of a high-tech radio telescope which will serve Chang'er-I, China's ambitious effort for moon probe scheduled for launch in 2007. It is one of the two key ground devices for the project.
The 45-meter tall telescope weighs 400 tons and measures 40 meters in diameter of the antenna. It's located in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province and is the country's second largest radio telescope. The largest is being built in Beijing.
According to LI Yan, director of the Observatory, together with two radio telescopes already set up in Shanghai and northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China now has four large radio telescopes which are 2,000 to 3,000 kilometers apart from each other.
The telescopes will form a comprehensive earth-based research and survey network that will be able to detect, track and retrieve data sent back from China's first moon-orbiting satellite, Li said.
The construction of the telescope started in August last year and will be completely installed and tested by June.
