Wuhan City, Hubei Province, central China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Aerial shot of spacecraft smart manufacturing center
2. Various of storage racks
3. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Liu Feng, deputy chief technical officer, Space Engineering Development Co., Ltd. (ending with shots 4-7):
"We are making a use of the warehouse management system to realize intelligent control of the entire warehouse, which stores information such as the materials' codes, names and their exact locations in the warehouse. There are over 1,800 storage booths in the warehouse, which can store tens of thousands of parts for 60 satellites."
4. Storage racks
5. Staff member talking with reporter
6. Vehicle transferring materials
7. Various of robotic arms working, assembling satellite
8. Aerial shot of robotic arms working
9. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Liu Feng, deputy chief technical officer, Space Engineering Development Co., Ltd. (starting with shot 8/ending with shot 10):
"We have closely combined the application of smart manufacturing technologies with satellite production in an innovative manner, aiming to make the entire production process more digital and smarter, thus reducing the workload for researchers."
10. Various of robotic arms working
11. Thermal vacuum testing device
12. Vehicle transferring satellite components
13. Various of robotic arms working

China's first smart manufacturing facility for making small satellites in the central city of Wuhan is now running well with high manufacturing efficiency, as it enables many key satellite production steps to be carried out by smart machinery rather than traditional manual labor.

Located in the Wuhan National Aerospace Industry Base, the facility saw the first satellite rolling off the production line back in May last year, shortly after it was officially put into operation.

The production line has an annual manufacturing capacity of 240 small satellites each weighing less than one ton, according to the owner of the facility -- the Space Engineering Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited.

With the adoption of smart manufacturing techniques, it can improve the efficiency of small satellites production by more than 40 percent.

The satellite parts warehouse in the smart manufacturing facility currently houses tens of thousands of components and parts used in satellite manufacturing. A smart management system helps researchers to quickly locate the needed parts and thus facilitates the production process.

"We are making a use of the warehouse management system to realize intelligent control of the entire warehouse, which stores information such as the materials' codes, names and their exact locations in the warehouse. There are over 1,800 storage booths in the warehouse, which can store tens of thousands of parts for 60 satellites," said Liu Feng, deputy chief technical officer of the CASIC Space Engineering Development Co., Ltd.

At the smart manufacturing facility, there are automatic vehicles transferring satellite components onto the smart production line.

In addition, with the help of robotic arms, the assembly and production efficiency has been greatly enhanced.

"We have closely combined the application of smart manufacturing technologies with satellite production in an innovative manner, aiming to make the entire production process more digital and smarter, thus reducing the workload for researchers," said Liu.

Thermal vacuum testing is the last step of small satellite production. The facility is equipped with a testing system which can simulate extreme environments to test whether small satellites can operate stably and smoothly under harsh conditions.

It takes at least nine days of testing before a small satellite could finally be put into operation and placed in space to provide service.