Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center

The Beijing Aerospace Control Center is located in Aerospace City in the north of Haidian District and has served since 1999 as the central hub for monitoring and controlling the People's Republic of China's crewed spaceflights and deep-space missions. The facility was built as part of the so-called Project 921, after the earlier satellite control center in Xi'an was no longer sufficient to meet the growing demands of the crewed space program. After ground was broken in 1996, trial operations began as early as the end of that same year, so the facility saw its first regular use during the launch of the uncrewed spacecraft Shenzhou 1 in November 1999. Originally under the General Armaments Department of the People's Liberation Army, the center was incorporated into the Aerospace Department of the Strategic Support Force in 2016.

Architecturally, the center is defined by a fifteen-story office building, with a four-story annex attached to its south side. This is where the main control room is located, spanning the upper three floors. From a soundproofed gallery on the ground floor, visitors can follow the proceedings without disturbing the engineers, who work at 120 workstations arranged in five rows. The front rows are devoted to direct flight control, while the rear row is reserved for the commander and his assistants, who make the final decisions. Behind the control room, the building also houses a national key laboratory, where engineers work on the precise tracking and control of spacecraft.

For visitors and anyone interested, the center offers a glimpse into the complex technology behind China's space missions. The staff, whose average age is around 35, use high-performance computers to calculate trajectories and send commands to the spacecraft. Because the center serves exclusively civilian purposes and has no antennas of its own, it works closely with ground stations and international networks. The engineers' open research, which includes numerous patents and scholarly articles, underscores the facility's scientific importance for modern spaceflight.