China kicks off construction of Dunhuang timing station

LANZHOU -- The construction of Dunhuang timing station, which will form part of China's high-precision ground-based timing system, has kicked off.

The timing station, located in Dunhuang City, northwest China's Gansu Province, enlisted a total investment of 180 million yuan (24.95 million U.S. dollars). In a construction period of three years, an antenna system, a transmission room, and a timing monitoring station will be built.

By adding three long-wave timing stations, respectively in Dunhuang, Korla City in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and Nagqu in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, to the existing long-wave timing system, China can realize full-territory-coverage of long-wave timing signals.

Meanwhile, the long-wave timing precision of the system can reach the order of 100 nanoseconds, a world leading level.

The high-precision ground-based timing system aims to improve the safety, reliability and accuracy of China's timing system, and to meet the demand for high-precision time frequencies when carrying out basic scientific research and major engineering projects, according to Zhang Shougang, director and chief scientist of the National Time Service Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The system is of great significance to efforts aimed at guaranteeing the development of basic industries, scientific research and national security, Zhang added.

By combining the high-precision ground-based timing system with the BeiDou navigation satellite timing system, and the space station time-frequency scientific experiment system, China will build a unique national timing system which is three-dimensional and mutually reinforcing, said Zhang.