Jiang Peng, a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress, speaks at the deliberation session of the Guizhou delegation on March 7, 2023. [Photo/provided by National People’s Congress]

China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), dubbed as “eye of heaven”, has discovered over 740 pulsars since commencing formal operation in 2020. The number makes FAST the top spotter among global pulsar search teams and an important contributor to pulsar discovery in the world, said Jiang Peng, chief engineer of the telescope and a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress (NPC).

Pulsars are dense and bright remnants of massive stars that have gone supernova. Dubbed the "lighthouse of the universe", they are a hot topic in astronomy research.

Located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in Southwest China's Guizhou province, FAST started formal operation in January 2020 and officially opened to the world on March 31, 2021. It is believed to be the world's largest and most sensitive single dish radio telescope.

FAST is expected to help mankind explore the universe for neutral hydrogen, detect pulsars, and possibly answer some unknowns in the interplanetary space, said experts.

“The development of this unprecedented project has been a painstaking process,” said Jiang, who has devoted himself to building FAST over the past 14 years.

As head in charge of the construction of FAST’s cable network, which boasts the world's largest span, the highest precision, and the most unique working methods, Jiang independently completed the optimization design and mechanical analysis of its complex cable network structures. He has also made significant contributions to the advancement of FAST’s system engineering by proposing a number of highly difficult technology implementation plans.

Since its completion in 2016, Jiang and his team have made encouraging progress one after another to improve FAST.

The hard work has since paid off. His chief engineer report on the telescope’s technical implementation indicators was unanimously recognized by the expert group at the FAST acceptance meeting in April 2019, which means that all technical indicators of the telescope have met national acceptance standards.

“The innovation of technology and breakthroughs in materials have brought the comprehensive performance of FAST to a leading international level. This is of great significance for advancing major original breakthroughs in astronomy in China,” said Jiang.

"I am extremely fortunate to have dedicated myself to this legendary project," said Jiang, a winner of a number of national awards for his technical achievements.

“It’s also a great source of pride to share my stories of working on my dream at an interview of deputies during the first session of the 14th NPC this year”, he added.

Talent, which has always been Jiang's concern, plays a key role in scientific exploration. During this year's NPC session, he put forward specific suggestions on the evaluation of different kinds of talents with more scientific methods, so that more excellent scientific and technological workers are willing to commit to frontline research.

The deputy said that he will continue to lead his team to break through "bottleneck" of technologies, diligently solve key problems while constantly improving the performance of the telescope, and help maintain the leading position and core competitiveness of China’s “eye of heaven” in the world.