Breakthrough in laser ranging technology

Xinhua News Agency, Wuhan, December 8th (Reporter Li Wei) On the 8th, reporters learned from the Tianqin Space Science Task Conference held by Huazhong University of Science and Technology that since June 8, 2019, China's Tianqin planning team has been successful many times The laser measurement of the distance between the earth and the moon is realized, and the echo signals of all five laser mirrors on the moon are obtained for the first time in China. This signifies that, including China, a total of five countries around the world have the technical capabilities to accurately measure the distance between the earth and the moon with lasers.

Earth-moon laser ranging uses pulsed lasers as a light source to accurately measure the space distance between the earth and the moon. It is the key technology that must be overcome to carry out the space gravitational wave detection of the Tianqin Project. The Tianqin laser ranging station on the Zhuhai campus of Sun Yat-Sen University has completed the construction of the station in less than one year and achieved high-precision ground-to-month distance measurement. This is the "0" in the Tianqin plan "0123" roadmap. "step. The reporter was informed that the "1" step in the "0123" roadmap of the Tianqin plan, that is, the country's first future-oriented gravitational wave space detection technology test satellite is expected to be launched at the end of this year.

The Tianqin plan is an international space gravitational wave detection plan led by China, led by Luo Jun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at an international conference of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in March 2014. It is reported that since 1994, Luo Jun began to lay out space gravitational wave detection research at the Gravity Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He has accumulated a number of key technologies over the past 20 years and has reserved a group of outstanding talents. The Tianqin Space Science Task Symposium attracted nearly 300 scholars from 42 universities and research institutions at home and abroad.

Source: Xinhua News Agency