Chinese authorities have approved a plan to build a radio telescope in Qitai, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, noting that it will be the world’s largest fully steerable single-dish radio telescope upon completion.

The construction of Xinjiang Qitai 110 Radio Telescope (QT), which intends to operate at 150MHz to 115 GHz, will be operated under the leadership of Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). According to Thepaper.cn, the construction plan was approved by China’s National Development and Reform Commission on December 26, 2017, and will be used to study gravitational waves, black holes, and dark matter.

“QT will be able to scan three quarters of the sky, including the center of our Galaxy. It will become China’s only universal radio telescope, as well as a unique astro-observation center,” Zheng Yongchun, a research fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Thepaper.cn.

The project is part of the “13th Five Year Plan” of Xinjiang Autonomous Region and the related plan of CAS. Meanwhile, the Qitai site has fully entered into the construction phase.

China has been making great progress in outer space exploration in recent years. The country has built the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in Guizhou province in 2016, the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope.