Base 603
spaceport
Guangde Rocket Launch Site (simplified Chinese: 广德火箭发射场; traditional Chinese: 廣德火箭發射場; pinyin: Guǎngdé Huǒjiàn Fāshè Chǎng) also known as Base 603 (603基地) is a suborbital launch site that was operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences located in Shijiedu (誓节渡), Shijie Town (誓节镇), Guangde County, Xuancheng Prefecture, Anhui province on the Chinese east coast.
The location of the site was surrounded by mountains in four directions, with no roads and no access to resources, but it was chosen as an upgrade to the too limited facilities of the Nanhui Launch Site.
History
The construction of the launch site was started in March 1960 under the direction of Department 581 (including the Second Geophysics Institute), and completed in less than six months, including a weather station, radars, control and tracking stations, launch pad, service tower, propellant storage room, propulsion testing facilities, living quarters, etc.
The launch center was first directed by the Institute of Geology and Geophysics Chinese Academy of Sciences (地球物理所), then in June 1960 by the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (上海市机电设计研究院). Finally the Fifth Academy of the Ministry of National Defence (国防部第五研究院) took control in 1963.
China launched its first ever successful T-7 sounding rocket in September 1960.
From 1960 to 1966, several of the T-7 and T-7A sounding rockets were launched at the site.
The first successful flight of a biological experimental T-7A/S1 sounding rocket transporting eight white mice was launched and recovered on July 19, 1964.
The last launch was reportedly that of a dog aboard a T-7A/S2 on 28 July 1966.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Base 603” as spaceport. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as spaceport. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q380195. Authority coordinates are 30.881, 119.203. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 1963, 1966 and 1964.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Base 603” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.