Space Industry: Chinese company produces glass for spacecraft

China's burgeoning space industry has attracted many private companies. One, based in Qinhuangdao around 300 kilometers east of Beijing has been developing special glass for space stations and spacecraft. Our reporter Ning Hong paid a visit to the production base.

It is difficult for ordinary people to imagine that despite the harsh environments in space, glass is a very commonly used material. Special glass for space vehicles is produced here.

NING HONG, Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province "Glasses used in space, your first thought must be the window, thick and heavy to protect people from radiation and hostile environment, but today, I'm gonna show you another kind of glass. Look, this is actually glass, but it's like a piece of plastic paper, very light and very thin."

More than 30,000 pieces of these thin pieces of glass were used in the solar panels of the Chinese space station. The specially treated glass is about five times stronger than ordinary glass sheets, which on the one hand protects the solar cell from harmful ions in space. On the other hand, it ensures the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the solar cell and by extension, the normal and stable operation of the spacecraft.

LU YILIN, General Manger, Qinhuangdao Xingjian Special Glass Co., Ltd "Any component on a spacecraft needs to reduce weight, so our glass must first be ultra-thin. The thinnest can reach a few hundredths of a millimeter – nearly one-tenth the thickness of a human hair. However, glass also needs to be resistant to irradiation and the impact of drastic change in temperature."

The seemingly light and thin glass sheet has to go through dozens of processes to meet the requirements. One of the most critical steps is coating.

LU YILIN, General Manger, Qinhuangdao Xingjian Special Glass Co., Ltd "This is one of our pieces of equipment for chemical evaporation. There is a glass sheet on it, and it has to be chemically coated. The coating functions to increase the light transmittance of the glass. The thickness of this product is about one-tenth of a millimeter. It can be used on many spacecraft."

Participating as a private enterprise in a major aerospace project was unimaginable in the past, and founder, Lu Yong, was once an ordinary businessman who ran a furniture business. His company has been winning more and more aerospace projects over the last 17 years. As the product matures, the cost also drops a lot.

LU YONG, Founder, Qinhuangdao Xingjian Special Glass Co., Ltd "Although we are a private enterprise, each of us feels very honored to be involved in the country's space industry, and we are also aware of the great responsibility. As a supporting enterprise in the aerospace field, we attach great importance to innovation and technological breakthroughs."

After decades of development, China's space industry has expanded from a few companies to more than 260 listed companies, as well as a larger number of small and medium-sized enterprises. With the growth of commercial aerospace, demand has surged, and more private enterprises have been allowed to participate in developing spacecraft products and space applications. Ning Hong, CGTN, Hebei Province.