China’s space environment vertical exploration and the first space science active experiment conducted at 05:55 a.m. on April 5th, 2013 have achieved completed success. On one hand, the experiment conducted research on vertical distribution characteristics of space environment in low latitudes; on the other hand, it provided calibration for ground-based remote-sensing observational facility. The experiment was fulfilled by The KUNPENG-1 sonde loaded by carrier rocket. The said sonde was jointly developed by National Space Science Center of CAS, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics (XIOPM) of CAS, and University of Graz in Austria. XIOPM developed the fiber optic gyro measurement instrument of the sonde.

Fiber optic gyro measurement instrument served as one of key loadings of The KUNPENG-1 sonde, measuring parameter including angular speed and linear speed of the rocket and transmitting information including flight attitude and yaw angle of the rocket in real time, successfully completed rocket attitude tracking and measurement task. Data measured by fiber optic gyro measurement instrument are completely in conformity with that of surface-based observing station.

The fiber optic gyro measurement instrument was developed by the young team with innovation leaded by Xu Jintao, and average age of the team members is under 30. In June 2012, the said team won the competition by new technical route, strong adaptive capacity to environment, satisfaction of high requirements of range of measurement and precision under the condition of large angle of emission and high rotation speed. The assignment document was signed in July which required equipment for evaluation to be submitted on August 30 and equipment for flight to be submitted on October 30.
Since a serials of research and development process including scheme design, key technical identification, all kinds of out-fields, environment and simulation experiment and end product manufacture should be finished within a short period of 2 months, all members of the team worked continuously day and night during all whole weeks in order the product to be submitted as scheduled. The said team broke the traditional research and development route, starting equipment for evaluation and equipment for flight simultaneously. With cooperation of the Science and Technology Division, Division of Quality and Program and Quality Management Centre, equipment for evaluation and equipment for flight three sets of products in total were submitted as scheduled which all passed the out-field experiment, simulation experiment, environment experiment and other experiment at one time.
During the process of research and development, the team pioneered the fiber optic gyro 2nπ tracking technology by which it broke through technical requirements of large range of measurement and high precision of the fiber optic gyro measurement instrument under the condition of large angle of emission and high rotation speed and went through the humid environment in low latitudes test. The experiment task was successfully finished and the team gained good reputation from the project assembly unit and has opened a new way for the application field for fiber optic gyro measurement instrument.