The Laboratory of Space Environment Exploration consists of an integrated observation chain and a data center, which long served as a stable experimental platform for scientific research of space physics at IGG.

The space environment integrated observation chain includes four basic stations, i.e. Mohe, Beijing, Wuhan and Sanya, and two extended stations, Arctic Yellow River and Antarctic Zhongshan. These stations are distributed along the terrestrial meridian for observing the high, middle and low latitudes of terrestrial space.

Under the support of the solar-terrestrial space environment observation network construction of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Meridian Project, more than 40 sets of international advanced instruments have been installed at the various stations. Research in the field of space environment disturbance and structure is carried out using geomagnetic fields, and middle and upper atmosphere and ionosphere measurements from the chain.

In addition, the data center also has responsibilities such as data collection, monitoring, processing, storage, analysis and publication services, and so on. Its missions include (but are not limited to) the following: mapping the space environment over China in near real time; sharing scientific data with the International Real-time Magnetic Observatory Network, World Data Center, Data Sharing Infrastructure of Earth System Science, Meridian Project, and other research institutes; and providing high quality data for basic and applied basic space physics research.

These contributions greatly improve the ability of space environmental research over China.