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Hainan's Wenchang city to create advanced aerospace technology cluster — media

According to China News Service, the new industrial site will have manufacturing facilities for commercial rockets and satellites

Wenchang Cosmodrome Gao Lin

Wenchang Cosmodrome

HAIKOU /China/, Jan. 12. /TASS/. Wenchang authorities in the northeast of Hainan Island are planning to create a high-tech industrial cluster to implement advanced aerospace projects, China News Service reported.

According to the article, the issue was discussed at a meeting of the city's People's Assembly, the body that enforces the constitution, laws, and administrative legal acts, and oversees socio-economic development planning. The new industrial site will include production facilities for the creation of commercial rockets and satellites.

"Once completed, the commercial aerospace project development base will be formed to enable the assembly and testing of next-generation medium-range rockets," said Wenchang Mayor Liu Chun.

As he clarified, in 2021, the city administration is proactively communicating with specialized companies, many of which will soon establish production facilities in the cluster. According to the official, local authorities intend to speed up the construction of the Star City, create a space museum and a park dedicated to exploring the vastness of the universe, train professional aerospace specialists, and promote international projects to study satellite data.

The Wenchang launch site is one of China's four space harbors and is the only place in the country where technical conditions allow the CZ-7A (Changcheng-7-a) - the longest (60.7 meters) rocket of national design - to be launched into orbit. China's other next-generation rockets, which only Hainan is capable of launching, are the CZ-8 (Changcheng-8), CZ-5 (Changcheng-5), and CZ-5B (Changcheng-5-be). They are the most massive (870 and 837.5 tons, respectively) of all their analogues developed in China. The spaceport is a popular attraction, which in 2021 attracted more than 8 million tourists who spent 6 billion yuan (more than $942 million at current exchange rates) during their visit.

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