Chinese academy of space technology, established on february 20, 1968, is a primary research center and spacecraft development base. it has twelve research institutes and one factory and has set up a complete and coordinated development and production system comprising spacecraft system design, subsystems development and production, ait, environmental test, ground equipment and its application, and service and support.

CAST successfully developed and launched china’s first artificial earth satellite dongfanghong –1 in april 1970, opening a new epoch in china’s exploration of outer space. to date the academy has successfully developed and launched 52 satellites of various kinds and four shenzhou spaceships, including scientific and technological test satellites, communications and broadcasting satellites, meteorological satellites , returnable remote sensing satellites and ocean satellite. such technologies as satellite return, multi-satellite launched on one single rocket and putting-in position of geo satellite have reached the advanced world level. we have just formed six series of satellite of remote sensing, communications, meteorological, earth resource, navigation etc, including those in high, medium and low-height orbits.

In the fields of design, development and research, cast has opened a development road with chinese characteristics for chinese space technology, realizing the development transformation from single project to multiple projects and from scientific test to series applications. the shenzhou (magic ship) spaceship has attained important achievements in scientific experiments on space science, life science and earth observation and completed the development of human spaceflight technology by leaps and bounds.

Chinese academy of space technology has established infrastructures for design, production and test of world advance level and systematic management system with quality management at the core. more than 2000 new technological results developed by cast, such as heat pipe, high resolution imager, etc., have widely been applied in a great number of economic fields, bring in with remarkable economic and social benefits.

At present, chinese academy of space technology is strengthening research and development of the follow-on tasks for human space flight as well as those of dongfanghong-4 high-capacity communications satellite, lunar exploration, and consistently opens up new areas of space activity so as to raise chinese space technology into a higher level.