Welcome to our website!

Here is the window to showcase the development and progress of National Time Service Center (NTSC), the platform to spread and popularize scientific knowledge of time, as well as the tie to communicate with our numerous time users and brothering institutes. We hope that through the platform, our latest research achievements can be exhibited, nationwide time frequency users can be better served, NTSC can be better familiarized with the public, and more universal communication and cooperation in the scientific field of time frequency can be enhanced.

Time is a basic physical quantity. Time measurement immerses throughout all fields of human activities, scientific experiments and national construction at each period. Chronometer time, as the basis of scientific researches and scientific experiments, provides an indispensable time base coordinate for all dynamical systems and measurement and quantitative research of time sequence process. Likewise, chronometer time is also universally used for applied research, national defense and national economy construction, namely aerospace, deep space communication, satellite launching and monitoring, information highway, geological surveying and mapping, navigation, communication, power transmission and scientific measurement, etc.

With the speedy development of modern society, a higher precision-oriented chronometer time is required; since strict time synchronization are all built on the development of modern digital communication network, the construction of information highway and the coordination of all kinds of information of politics, culture, science & technology and society. Chronometer time, as a fundamental project of the national economy and the people's livelihood, has infiltrated through all aspects of human society and life. Hardly does a large country has no separate time standard and time frequency service system that trying to keep at the best level in contemporary times.

As a national-level base-type research institute in assuming the tasks of national standard time generating, keeping and transmitting, NTSC, previously called Shaanxi Astronomical Observatory, takes the “Keep close concern with time cycling, formulate calendar of time computing” as faith of the institute. The time system being constructed, maintained and operated by NTSC is a vital foundational project and public welfare facility in China and has been listed as one of the national key science projects supported by special funds of Ministry of Finance. Since its had been transmitting national standard time and standard frequency formally in 1970s, NTSC had provided reliable high precision time service for national economic development, national defense construction, national security in various industries and sectors, meeting the national requirements in a general manner. It, in particular, had been making important contribution to space technology development that characterized by national satellite & rocket launching and national defense modernization construction.

Since being listed as the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) program of knowledge innovation, NTSC, based on years-long scientific research accumulation, has completed a perfect national time task by giving full play to its own advantages, aiming at national important requirements, distilling scientific & technological targets, perfecting time system construction, and improving time keeping and comparison precision of atomic time and has realized striding development by introducing talents, starting the development of high-performance atomic clock, and exploring research fields of positioning and navigation.

The orientation of Scientific Research of NTSC: Basing on providing time service, NTSC engaged itself in researches concerning time service, aiming to guarantee and meet the requirements raised by the increasing national development for different time precision and high-precision time in particular, in order to offer an all-round, multi-level, multi-channel, advanced and convenient time service for sustainable development of national economy, national defense construction and national security; starting out from national strategy demand and targeting at the frontier of this academic discipline, NTSC has undertaken a series of research work such as high-precision time transfer and synchronization, new technology and new approach of time service, measurement and control of high accuracy time frequency, time scale and time service theory & method, navigation and communication, design and development of time user system, all of these enable our country to rank among the advanced units in the world in terms of time service and time frequency research, and also make NTSC a relatively complete and independent research and service center for time service frequency.

As performed very well in such daily operation managements as BPL, BPM and BPC, NTSC also centers itself closely on aspiring research and development relying on new method and much higher precision of time frequency demanded by national defense and rapid development of national economy, such ongoing researches as research on new quantum frequency standard, time-keeping theory and method, measurement and control of time frequency, time transfer and synchronization, expansion of new time service method, distant transfer and comparison of high-precision time internationally, time scale and frequency standard, research and development of user time system, precise orbit determination, as well as navigation & positioning theory and technology which has been involved a mass of fundamental work and application research work. All of these works have yielded a lot of theories and technological results, which spur on the advance and progress of our country in this field and make NTSC a time frequency research, service and development center with unique advantages and international influence.

For the past few years, NTSC has basically realized the generation-to-generation transfer of scientific and technical personnel, since it implemented the talent strategy of “Condensing technological target; enhancing innovation capability; keeping stabilized and making good use of existing talents; cultivating and attracting young brilliant talents; driving talent’s nourishment by various projects”. A bunch of young scientists have stood out among the innovation team, forming a new scientific and technical personnel with young scientists as the backbone, and making a succession of excellent results.

The advance and progress NTSC has achieved so far enjoys an inseparable relationship with the care and support from leaders of CAS and support from brothering institutes; also is inseparable with support and cooperation with national and local governments at all levels as well as enterprises. Therefore, I hereby would like to extend my warm and sincere welcome to those scientific research institutions both from home and abroad, institutions of high learning, enterprises and various circles of society, who have come here to exchange ideas and cooperate with our center. Further more, we also warmly welcome the brilliant talents to come and work in our center and make joint efforts with us in realizing innovative progress in scientific and research work of NTSC.

Thank you.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　ZHANG Shougang

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Professor & Director of NTSC