Arrow of Dawn

In the early years of the People’s Republic of China, the country was rebuilding from the ground up. In 1957, the exhaust plume of the Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile pierced the skies over Baikonur, while America’s Thor rocket rumbled on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral. Unwilling to fall behind, New China joined a worldwide space race. In the winter of 1958, a secret order came down from the Central Committee: the First Design Institute was to relocate to Shanghai and become the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Design, taking up the banner of China’s space program and devoting itself to developing Project 581. People from all walks of life in Shanghai worked together and persevered through hardship, composing a moving hymn to China’s space program. On February 19, 1960, China’s first independently developed T-7M sounding rocket ignited and soared into the sky from the tidal flats at Laogang, Nanhui, Shanghai. The moment it broke through the clouds, China’s rocket program officially began, and the Chinese nation embarked on its journey to pursue the stars. The Arrow of Dawn, the light of daybreak, illuminates the path to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with unstoppable force.