Modernization Political Work

The Most Beautiful Revolutionary Soldier of the New Era | Sergeant Gao Debao of a Unit Under the Military Space Force: Sentinel on a Nameless Hill

最美新时代革命军人风采丨军事航天部队某部军士高德宝：无名山上的守望者

PLA Daily (解放军报) 7 August 2026

Summary

Sergeant Gao Debao, assigned to an unspecified unit under the Military Space Force (航天部队), maintains and troubleshoots ground-based space support equipment at a fixed installation, and led a small innovation team that developed a device extending a critical component's service life to more than twice its design value—an achievement recognized and disseminated across the PLA. The article is a 'Most Beautiful Revolutionary Soldier' profile, a standard PLA Daily human-interest format used to model institutional values; its narrow analytical value is as a record of how the Space Force frames technical self-reliance and grassroots innovation at the enlisted level. The equipment's nature, location, and mission context are not identified, so the profile documents the messaging posture but cannot support conclusions about specific Space Force capabilities or readiness.

Translation

Sergeant Gao Debao of a Unit Under the Military Space Force—

Sentinel on a Nameless Hill

■ Hao Mingxin, PLA Daily Reporter Li Weixin

On a summer morning, atop a nameless hill standing less than 300 meters above sea level, Gao Debao—a sergeant in a unit under the Military Space Force—arrived at the equipment position for his routine inspection, just as he always does.

Listening to check whether the sound of the electrical current is normal, checking whether the vibration of the water flow inside the cooling pipes is steady … Gao Debao carefully examines every detail of the equipment's operation. He has kept up this habit for many years.

In 2008, a new type of equipment was about to be installed and commissioned, and Gao Debao voluntarily applied to take part in the task. But he quickly discovered that, in a technology-intensive unit, he—with only a high school education—was a complete "outsider." "At first, I couldn't even figure out the odd jobs, let alone the specialized operations," Gao Debao recalled. Once, a comrade asked him to help find an 18-millimeter wrench, and he had to ask, embarrassed, "What does 18 mean?"

During that period, Gao Debao spent his days shadowing the resident factory experts every step of the way to learn from their experience, and his nights studying theoretical knowledge with painstaking effort. Half a year later, he was already able to complete commissioning independently and could offer important opinions and suggestions during fault diagnosis.

Someone asked him: "You push yourself this hard—what for?" Gao Debao answered: "I hope that one day I'll be able to say, 'Hand it to me—no problem.'"

In the course of one major mission, Gao Debao made good on that promise.

On the eve of the mission, the equipment suffered a sudden malfunction and the system fell into paralysis. The atmosphere on site was heavy.

"Let me try." While everyone was anxious, Gao Debao stepped forward. After four hours of intense work, when the words "power output normal" appeared on the screen, everyone broke into warm applause.

From that point on, Gao Debao gradually took on the load-bearing role, and everyone began calling him "Bold Gao" (高大胆). This "boldness" was absolutely not recklessness—it was rooted in day-after-day accumulation. He wrote more than 100,000 characters of study notes and distilled a working method he called "ask one more question, take one more look, take one more step, think one layer deeper" (多问一句、多看一眼、多行一步、多想一层).

In recent years, some of the equipment has gradually aged. Gao Debao proactively volunteered to establish an innovation and problem-solving team, doing everything possible to extend the service life of the equipment.

Affected by cold climate conditions and voltage fluctuations, the service life of a certain critical component had fallen below its design value. "Could we extend its service life through technical means?" Gao Debao boldly put forward the idea.

To obtain precise data, he led his team in conducting round-the-clock, uninterrupted monitoring of the component; to observe minute waveform changes, he could stare at the screen for a very long time … In the end, they successfully developed a certain type of device that extended the component's service life to more than twice its original length. This achievement subsequently won an award across the entire military and was promoted for wider application.

"I feel I still haven't done enough." Gao Debao is already preparing for the next challenge, the next charge forward.

Original Chinese

军事航天部队某部军士高德宝—— 无名山上的守望者 ■郝明鑫解放军报记者李伟欣夏日清晨，一座海拔不到300米的无名山上，军事航天部队某部军士高德宝像往常一样来到装备阵地巡检。听听电流声是否正常，查查冷却管内水流震动是否平稳……高德宝认真核查装备运行的每一处细节。这样的习惯，他已经坚持了多年。 2008年，某新型装备即将安装调试，高德宝主动申请参加任务。但他很快发现，身处技术密集型单位，只有高中学历的自己完全是个“门外汉”。“刚开始，我连杂活儿都干不明白，更别说那些专业操作。”高德宝回忆，有一次，战友让他帮忙找18号扳手，他不好意思地问“18号是什么意思”。那段时间，高德宝白天寸步不离跟着驻厂专家学经验，晚上刻苦钻研理论知识。半年后，他已经能独立完成调试，还能在故障排查中提出重要意见建议。有人问他：“你这么拼，图啥？”高德宝回答：“希望有一天，也能说‘交给我，没问题’。” 一次重大任务中，高德宝践行了这句承诺。任务前夕，装备突发故障，系统陷入瘫痪，现场气氛凝重。 “我来试试。”众人焦灼之际，高德宝站了出来。4小时紧张作业后，当“功率正常输出”的字样出现在屏幕上，大家热烈鼓掌。自此，高德宝渐渐挑起大梁，大家都叫他“高大胆”。这种“大胆”，绝非鲁莽，而是源于日复一日的积累。他写下10万余字的学习笔记，总结出“多问一句、多看一眼、多行一步、多想一层”工作法。近几年，一些装备渐渐老化。高德宝主动请缨成立革新攻关小组，想方设法延长装备使用寿命。受寒冷气候和电压波动影响，某关键器件的使用寿命低于设计值。“能否通过技术手段延长它的使用寿命？”高德宝大胆提出设想。为获取精准数据，他带领团队对该器件进行24小时不间断监测；为观察微小的波形变化，他可以在屏幕前盯上很久……最终，他们成功研制出某型装置，将器件的使用寿命延长至原来的两倍以上，这项成果后来在全军获奖并获得推广。 “我觉得自己做得还不够。”高德宝仍在准备着下一次挑战、下一轮冲锋。