About China Academy of Space Technology

China Academy of Space Technology

The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) is China's main spacecraft development and production centre. Founded in Beijing's Haidian District on 20 February 1968, with Qian Xuesen — a founder of China's space industry — as its first president, the academy is a subsidiary (the "Fifth Academy") of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and designs and manufactures nearly every class of Chinese spacecraft: the Dong Fang Hong communications satellites, the Shenzhou crewed spacecraft, the Tiangong space laboratories and the modules of the Tiangong space station, the Chang'e lunar probes and the Tianwen-1 Mars probe. Its first product made history within two years of its founding: Dong Fang Hong I, China's first artificial satellite, launched on 24 April 1970, which made China the fifth country in the world to develop and launch a satellite independently. By 2023 the academy reported more than 22,000 employees and had delivered over 430 spacecraft.

Founding and Qian Xuesen

CAST was established on 20 February 1968, in response to the call to develop China's own man-made satellites that had been issued in the mid-1960s. Qian Xuesen, the rocket scientist who had returned to China in 1955 and directed the country's missile and space research organisation, became its first president (also described as its dean or director in English-language accounts of the first satellite). Creating a dedicated academy for spacecraft — separate from the launch-vehicle organisation — gave the satellite programme a single design authority at the moment the Dongfanghong mission was being accelerated, with specific planning and implementation steps, and with central government funding that participants recalled at 200 million yuan for the mission. Qian directed the satellite's development; Sun Jiadong was responsible for the Dongfanghong-1 technology within the "Three-Satellite Plan" the academy formulated, covering Dongfanghong-1 itself, re-entry (returnable) satellites, and geosynchronous-orbit communications satellites — a plan that mapped, in outline, the academy's product lines for the following three decades.

Dong Fang Hong I and the First Satellite Era

On 24 April 1970 a Long March 1 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and placed Dongfanghong-1 in orbit. The satellite was a symmetrical 72-faced polyhedron about one metre in diameter, with a mass of 173 kilograms — heavier than the first satellites of the other spacefaring nations combined, as contemporary comparisons noted — in an orbit with a perigee of 441 kilometres, an apogee of 2,286 kilometres and an inclination of 68.42 degrees. It carried a radio transmitter that broadcast the song "The East Is Red", from which the satellite took its name; the broadcast, decoded through ground stations, was the mission's public proof of success. The launch made China the fifth country, after the Soviet Union, the United States, France and Japan, to independently launch a satellite, and 24 April is now observed as China's Space Day. Five identical satellites were built for the programme; the first launch attempt, on 16 November 1969, had failed. A copper antenna membrane chosen by Dang Hongxin in 1967 solved the problem of broadcasting on an ultra-short-wave antenna across the orbital temperature swing between 100 °C and −100 °C. The satellite's transmitter worked for about twenty days; the spacecraft itself remains in orbit. After the launch, Qian Xuesen proposed that China develop a manned space programme, submitting a report that Mao Zedong signed for further work, though financial and technical pressures led to the early crewed project's cancellation in 1972; in 1975 China successfully launched and recovered a remote-sensing satellite for the first time, opening CAST's returnable-satellite line.

Organisation within CASC

CAST is the spacecraft arm of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the state-owned conglomerate that is the main contractor for the Chinese space programme, responsible for the research, design, manufacture and launch of nearly every piece of hardware China sends to orbit and beyond. Within CASC's division of labour, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology builds the Long March rockets — the ride to space — while CAST builds what goes on top: satellites, crewed spacecraft, space station modules and deep-space probes. The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology complements CAST as a second spacecraft centre, producing certain satellites and components including the service module for Shenzhou. CAST itself has set up some ten research institutes and a factory, together with a space technology research and test centre, forming an integrated system covering overall spacecraft design, subsystem development and production, final assembly and testing, environmental testing, ground equipment and applications, and service assurance. Its headquarters are in Haidian, Beijing, the district that also hosts much of China's space and university research establishment. By 2005 the academy counted 68 types of artificial satellites, four unmanned test spacecraft and two crewed spacecraft developed, organised into families of communications and broadcasting satellites, returnable remote-sensing satellites, Earth-resources satellites, meteorological satellites and scientific exploration spacecraft.

Satellite Families: Dong Fang Hong and Applications

The academy's original product line, the Dong Fang Hong series, began with the 1970 technology satellite and matured into China's communications satellite platforms; CAST designs and manufactures the Dong Fang Hong satellites that carry the country's satellite communications and broadcasting. Around that core, the academy's "Three-Satellite Plan" structure persisted: returnable remote-sensing satellites from 1975 onward, Earth-resources satellites, meteorological and scientific spacecraft, and navigation and data-relay systems operated within the state satellite services. Because CASC is vertically integrated — managing a mission's whole lifecycle from drawing board to launch pad — CAST platforms are designed against the Long March manifest and against ground and application systems built by sister units, which is why the same academy appears behind missions as different as a geosynchronous communications satellite and a sample-return lunar lander. By 2023, CAST reported that it had delivered over 430 spacecraft in total, a cumulative figure that places it among the most prolific spacecraft manufacturers in the world, and its reported workforce of more than 22,000 employees in the same year makes spacecraft engineering one of the largest single concentrations of engineering employment in Beijing.

Crewed Spaceflight: Shenzhou and Tiangong

CAST is the builder of China's crewed spacecraft. The Shenzhou ("Divine Vessel") is a three-module vehicle — orbital module, re-entry module for the crew, and service module with propulsion and power — whose design is similar to the Russian Soyuz; it was developed by CAST and is launched exclusively on the human-rated Long March 2F. China's crewed programme, known as Project 921, has proceeded step by step under the China Manned Space Agency: the first Chinese astronaut flew in 2003, and Shenzhou missions now ferry crews to the Tiangong space station. CAST designed the Tiangong space laboratories and built the modules of the Tiangong station, including its core module and laboratory modules, in collaboration with the space agency system; keeping the station crewed continuously since 2022 depends on the Shenzhou crew vehicles and the cargo logistics chain of CAST-built spacecraft. The crewed line is the direct descendant of the programme Qian Xuesen proposed in 1970: what was cancelled in 1972 for financial and technical reasons was resumed two decades later with CAST again as the spacecraft design authority, and the academy that built a 173-kilogram broadcast satellite in 1970 now builds the vehicles in which Chinese astronauts live and work in orbit.

Lunar and Deep-Space Exploration: Chang'e and Tianwen

CAST is the manufacturer of China's robotic explorers. Under the Chang'e lunar programme, CASC rockets delivered CAST orbiters and landers to the Moon, enabling China's first lunar soft landing and roving and, in the programme's later missions, sample return; the Chang'e landers and the Yutu rovers are CAST spacecraft in the same institutional lineage as the Shanghai-built rover contributions within the wider CASC system. In 2020 the Tianwen-1 mission set out for Mars carrying an orbiter and the Zhurong rover, both CAST products; the rover's successful landing made China only the second country to operate a rover on Mars. These missions are run as national programmes — the China National Space Administration sets civil policy and runs the robotic Moon and planetary missions, while CASC and its academies build the hardware — so CAST's role is that of prime spacecraft contractor: overall design, manufacture, assembly and test of the flight hardware that the agencies operate. The progression from Dongfanghong-1 through Chang'e and Tianwen is the academy's defining narrative in Chinese public accounts of the space programme, retold each Space Day, when the academy supplies the photographs and the participants' recollections of the 1970 launch.

Scale, Workforce and Facilities

The academy's own reporting, as carried in reference sources, put its workforce at more than 22,000 employees by 2023 and its cumulative output at over 430 spacecraft delivered. Its organisational footprint — around ten research institutes, a production factory and a dedicated space technology research and test centre — supports the full spacecraft engineering cycle in-house: overall design, subsystem development and production, final assembly and integration, environmental testing of complete spacecraft, ground equipment and applications, and service assurance for spacecraft in operation. This test infrastructure matters because Chinese spacecraft, from communications platforms to crewed vehicles, are qualified as complete systems before delivery to the launch sites at Jiuquan, Taiyuan, Xichang and Wenchang, which are operated separately within the state space system. CAST's Beijing base in Haidian places its design and assembly work beside the headquarters of CASC and the agencies that task it, while manufacturing and test functions are distributed among its institutes and factory in the manner typical of the Chinese aerospace academies.

Official Presence and Directory Facts

The academy's official website is cast.cn, published by the China Academy of Space Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The fixed facts for this directory entry are: full name China Academy of Space Technology, abbreviated CAST; founded 20 February 1968 in Haidian District, Beijing; first president Qian Xuesen; parent organisation the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), within which it is the Fifth Academy and the main developer and manufacturer of Chinese spacecraft; first spacecraft Dong Fang Hong I, launched 24 April 1970 from Jiuquan; principal product lines the Dong Fang Hong communications satellites, returnable and applications satellites, the Shenzhou crewed spacecraft, the Tiangong laboratories and space station modules, the Chang'e lunar probes and the Tianwen-1 Mars probe; reported scale of more than 22,000 employees and over 430 spacecraft delivered by 2023. Few research institutions anywhere can claim CAST's combination of longevity and continuity: the academy founded to build China's first satellite still builds, more than five decades later, the spacecraft that carry its astronauts, land its rovers on the Moon and Mars, and operate its permanent space station.