Recently, Beijing Beiye Functional Materials Corporation received two notes from the Long March 5 Launch Vehicle Model Office thanking Shougang Beiye Corporation for its various types of special stainless steel strips, which were successfully applied to the key material bellows of the rocket engines, contributing to the complete success of the first flight of the Long March 5B Launch Vehicle. These parts also contributed to the on-time launch of the Chang’e-5 lunar probe and Long March 5 Yao 5 Rocket and helped enabled them to achieve an accurate orbit, making the rocket’s mission a complete success. The notes express sincere thanks for the outstanding contributions made by the Shougang researchers who participated in the material development.

As a national key military support unit and a key R&D production base for aerospace materials, Beiye stands on its R&D foundation in developing high-end metal functional materials and relies on complete sets of production equipment for uses such as smelting, hot processing and cold processing. It has an experienced, skilled, highly educated, high-quality R&D team specializing in a wide range of fields, and has fostered the ability to independently develop and produce high-end metal functional materials. Over the years, it has made important contributions to the R&D, construction, experimental cooperation and supporting work of key national projects such as the manned space program and the lunar landing program.

For the missions of the Long March 5B Launch Vehicle and Yao 5 Rocket, Beiye undertook the research and development of bellows, the key material for rocket engines. This kind of bellows is made by stamping and welding a kind of special stainless steel strip. It puts high requirements on the mechanical properties and welding properties of the material. After receiving mission, the leadership of Beiye attached great importance to it, and organized a specialized R&D team for technical research. From stainless steel alloy composition optimization to purity control and smelting, the researchers worked day and night to conduct a great deal of research, analyzing tens of thousands of pieces of experimental data. After many failures, the team finally made breakthroughs in a number of key technologies, and successfully developed special stainless steel strips of excellent mechanical property and welding performance, enabling the key metal materials of bellows to be controlled autonomously, ensuring the successful completion of key national missions and making important contributions to the successful launch of Chang’e-5 probe.