In the Tibetan Yangbajing station of NAOC, there is the CCOSMA (previously named KOSMA) facility, a 3m submillimeter telescope which was relocated from Gornergrat in the Swiss Alps to Yangbajing in Tibet, China. NAOC together with some Chinese partners collaborated with the University of Cologne to initiate this project. This project began in early 2009, and the construction of the infrastructure was started on September 9, 2009. In June 2010, the KOSMA telescope was successfully disassembled with help from both the Chinese and German sides. Reassembly of the main part of the KOSMA telescope was completed in Yangbajing in July 2011. The upgrade and installation of the electronic control components and backend equipment for the KOSMA telescope were finished in July 2013. After the relocation of the 3m telescope was finished, KOSMA became the first telescope for routine submillimeter observations in China. It is also the submillimeter telescope located at the site with the highest elevation above sea level in the northern hemisphere.

The main scientific objectives of the telescope are collecting data on molecular clouds and star formation as well as conducting a submillimeter survey (CO) towards the Galactic plane. After the KOSMA telescope was relocated to its new site, it was renamed the China-Cologne Observatory for Submillimeter Astronomy (CCOSMA) .