Reported by: Shang Yankai
Translated by: Sun Jiayue
Edited by: Garrick Jones
The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in operation in a natural hollow in the (karst) landscape in Pingtang, in southwestern China's Guizhou province on September 25, 2016.
The FAST, in theory, could receive electromagnetic signal 13.7 billion light years away and this distance is close to the edge of the universe. Foreign scientists have once described the power of FAST vividly that it can find you if you call on the moon. Speaking of a global initiative technology that plays a vital role to make the FAST see further and more accurately, is the initiative reflector supporting system supported and finished by researchers of our university.
FAST is sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Astronomical Observatory. From the concept designing, siting to building, it took 22 years to finish this the world's largest single caliber and most sensitive radio telescope with independent intellectual property rights. The FAST project consists of initiative reflector supporting system, the focus cabin suspension system, measure and control system, receiver and terminal, observatory and other parts. Since 2003, the research group led by academician Shen Shizhao, Professor Fan Feng and Professor Qian Hongliang in our Space Structure Research Center have been fully involved in the FAST project in preliminary design, feasibility study and advance research in structure system. Our initiative reflector supporting system and other key technologies used in the FAST project offer powerful technical support and guarantee for the state ratification and the opening of the FAST project. Minister of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) Yan Jun says in the interview that coronary initiative reflector supporting system made with thousands of units in the karst pit is one of the three independent innovations of the FAST, which reflects the necessity of this technology.
Professor Fan Feng works as the chief engineer of structure system in the FAST project. According to him, before the construction of FAST, the world’s biggest telescope was the immobile Arecibo 305-meter radio telescope in the United States. The Bonn telescope can move, but the aperture is only 100m. FAST with 500m aperture, its innovative reflector supporting system is a spherical net structure made of thousands of steel cables and 4450 reflector elements and its receiving area equals to that of 30 qualified football courts. The huge supporting system brings big challenges for civil engineering technology and space structural technology in particular. Moreover, it should also meet the requirements of initiative displacement, high precision and light weight in the FAST project. Therefore, after years of continuous technical research, the initiative reflector supporting system put forward by the research group of HIT emerged among harsh competition and was applied in the FAST project. After many times of experiment, key technologies including reflector structure displacement control, analysis and control in major structural functions, structural health monitor and fault diagnosis are applied to the project, which meets the requirements of a large span, high precision and real-time displacement of the FAST.
On account of the outstanding contribution made by HIT in the FAST project, in 2010, NAOC named an asteroid found on June 7, 1996 the “HIT asteroid”. Thus, HIT becomes one of the few universities with an asteroid named after it. On the day FAST was finished, academician Shen Shizhao, Professor Fan Feng and Professor Qian Hongliang witnessed this historical moment on the spot. Professor Fan Feng told reporters proudly that “Apart from astronomical observation, the FAST could also be used as a major ground measure-control device to provide support for locating, guiding and receiving signals for lunar exploration and landing on moon and the Mars.”
Academician Shen Shizhao, Professor Fan Feng and Professor Qian Hongliang with the FAST
