Tracking
There are 20 land-based tracking stations in the Chinese space telemetry network. These are supplemented by four Yuanwang-series tracking ships. The Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center global map showed their positions to be:
- Yuanwang 1 in the Yellow Sea
- Yuanwang 2 about 1500 km (about 900 statute miles) southwest of French Polynesia
- Yuanwang 3 off the Namibian coast
- Yuanwang 4 off the coast of Western Australia in the Indian Ocean
Only one other land-based tracking station is outside China — at Swakopmund in Namibia.
Shortly after the Shenzhou 5 flight in 2003, the Pacific nation of Kiribati established diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan), leading the People's Republic of China (PRC) to cut off diplomatic ties under its One-China policy. Following this, the PRC has dismantled a tracking station that had been built on Tarawa, the capital island of Kiribati, to track spaceflights.
Read more about this topic: Shenzhou 6
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