The MUST telescope will be built at the "Lenghu Astronomical Observation Base" – at Point A in Area C of Saishiteng Mountain, Lenghu Town, Mangya City, Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China (East Longitude 93°54′00″, North Latitude 38°36′50″).
Saishiteng Mountain has an altitude between 4,200m and 4,500m. The local climate is extremely dry, with exceptionally clear skies. In 2019, the Haixi Prefecture government invested 26.06 million yuan (RMB), and in 2020 allocated 90.1 million yuan from general government bond funds to support the construction of the astronomical observation base. Infrastructure work at the site is progressing smoothly. Five telescope projects have already started construction at Lenghu. To address light pollution, Haixi Prefecture plans to establish a Dark Sky Reserve through legislation to avoid or minimize light pollution, fully supporting the scientific capabilities of large-scale astronomical facilities and providing strong guarantees for observational astronomy in China.
On May 27, 2021, Tsinghua University and the Qinghai Provincial People's Government held a signing ceremony for the "MUlti-channel Subtelescopic Telescope (MUST)" project. Qinghai Province will assist Tsinghua University in coordinating the construction and maintenance of the MUST observation equipment and related supporting research facilities.
As the next-generation, large-scale ground-based spectroscopic survey telescope, the MUST telescope system includes core components such as the primary mirror, secondary mirror, active optics and mirror support, telescope mount and support system, fiber positioning system, and multiple spectrograph systems. Tsinghua University's expertise in key technologies such as precision instruments, mechanics, electronics, and optics, as well as its experience in organizing large-scale scientific projects, will provide support for the MUST project. Preliminary conceptual designs for the telescope's overall optical system have already been completed. With the assistance of a series of leading domestic and international technical teams, the Tsinghua Astronomical Technology Center will organize a group of relevant experts to design and integrate the telescope and its scientific instruments.
MUST will become an optical observation platform with world-leading capabilities. It is worth noting that beyond its scientific potential, the technological explorations driven by MUST will catalyze rapid advancements in fields such as next-generation micro and nano spectrometers, specialized optical materials, high-precision sensor manufacturing, large-scale precision machinery manufacturing, and low-noise near-infrared detectors, all spurred by cutting-edge scientific needs. These related technologies can be widely applied in areas critical to the national economy and people's livelihoods, as well as in aerospace and deep-space exploration, playing a significant role in the nation's economic development and defense security. For instance, the platform will develop a new generation of micro and nano spectrometers, impacting various aspects of daily life. Adaptive optics technology, originally developed to overcome atmospheric turbulence, has rapidly disseminated to other fields, such as successfully enabling wavefront correction in advanced laser systems in China and enabling high-resolution imaging of the human retina.
