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Updated March 2006
Missile Facilities
Taiyuan Space Launch Center (Wuzhai)
Taiyuan Space Launch Center (TSLC)
Location: Taiyuan (Wuzhai), Shanxi Province.
Other Names:
Wuzhai Space and Missile Test Center
Wuzhai Range/Missile Test Center
Wuzhai IRBM Test Complex; Taiyuan Space Center (TSC)
The main commercial purpose of the satellite launch center is to launch low earth orbiting (LEO) and solar synchronous orbiting (SSO) satellites. The launch site is also for CZ-4 SLV satellite boosters to polar orbits. TSLC first launched a CZ-4 SLV in September 1988.
Also known as the Wuzhai Space and Missile Test Center, a launch site for land-based ballistic missiles and overland SLBM tests. Contains a silo and surface launch pad. Has tested such missiles as the DF-5 and the DF-31. Possibly site for war reserve launch for DF-5 and/or DF-4 missiles.
Solid Fuel Plant
There reportedly is a solid fuel plant at the Taiyuan site which dates back to the mid-1960s
[Sources: Tong Lianjie, “Xichang Satellite Launch Center,” Aerospace China, Summer 1992, pp. 17-20; Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume 5, pp. 340, 341, 362; Richard W. Fieldhouse, Chinese Nuclear Weapons, p. 58; Risk Report, May 1995, p. 7; Air and Cosmos/Aviation International (Paris), 25 October 1996, in FBIS-CST-96-020, 25 October 1996.]
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material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for
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