Long March 7 may debut tomorrow

[VaPaL]

China new launcher, the Long March 7, may lift off this weekend (launch window 25 - 29/06):

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/space-flight-news/china-introduce-newest-long-march-7-rocket-world/

More about the rocket:

http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/long-march-7/

 

[Shpaget]

It looks like the engineers followed that old design practice of "Moar boosters!!".

Good luck!

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, Shpaget said:

It looks like the engineers followed that old design practice of "Moar boosters!!".

Good luck!

For values of "moar boosters" that produce a Korolev cross.

[Scotius]

I assume it will fly with ballast? Good luck China

[Kryten]

Payloads are a subscale version of China's next gen crew capsule, ballast, the Aoxiang-1 cubesat, and two unknown vehicles called ADRV and BPV; likely more cubesats. Aside from the test of the vehicle itself, the main objectives are verifying the capsule design and testing the new YZ-1 upper stage through a complex four-burn profile. YZ-1 has flown twice before, but only with simple single-burn profiles; this should allow to Chinese to perform more complex missions.

[Dfthu]

How will we know if its launching or not?

[Kryten]

 We'll know from Chinese media reports immediately after, people in the public viewing area, and people in the immediate vicinity. 

[Kryten]

We have live feed of the pad from a local news channel; http://news.qq.com/zt2016/launchlive/index.htm

[liweih]

Successful launch confirmed. Congratulations!

Feeled like those people who stood on the beach of Florida and watch the launch of space shuttle. The only difference is now they have smartphones and pads.

[Scotius]

Beautiful photos Night launches are very spectacular.

[Kryten]

 

[Matuchkin]

Why does every Chinese rocket have four huge boosters with a red checkered pattern?

[VaPaL]

Just an update on the misson:

http://spaceflight101.com/china-lands-prototype-crew-spacecraft-after-inaugural-long-march-7-launch/

The 60% scale of their next capsule landed sucessfully. But as stated the capsule drifted a long way after touchdown due to strong winds:

Edited June 27, 2016 by VaPaL

[WuphonsReach]

On 6/25/2016 at 1:25 PM, Matuchkin said:

Why does every Chinese rocket have four huge boosters with a red checkered pattern?

My assumption as to why "red checkered" pattern is to make it easier to perform post-launch analysis from video images.  If you know that the boxes are size X, it gives you a way to calibrate what you see on the screen, or to track movement between frames.

[wumpus]

On 6/25/2016 at 1:25 PM, Matuchkin said:

Why does every Chinese rocket have four huge boosters with a red checkered pattern?

The four huge boosters is probably an evolution from Korelev's early designs.  The checker pattern is for image analysis of flight.  The black and white patterns from rockets like the Saturn series appears to be mostly from the Germans from operation Paperclip (the V2 had similar markings).  It made post-flight analysis easier.

I suspect that five boosters (four for stage 1, one for stage 2) is close to idea for nearly identical boosters (you need nozzle changes, and probably some alterations to the turbo-pumps, but plenty of design reuse).  Three might work better in vacuum, but you need the fourth to punch through the atmosphere.

[magnemoe]

14 hours ago, VaPaL said:

Just an update on the misson:

http://spaceflight101.com/china-lands-prototype-crew-spacecraft-after-inaugural-long-march-7-launch/

The 60% scale of their next capsule landed sucessfully. But as stated the capsule drifted a long way after touchdown due to strong winds:

Should have an way to cut parachutes, probably did not think about it as it was unmanned and also an subscale model who is likely to miss lots of features 

[VaPaL]

@magnemoe I thought exactly the same. Well, lesson learned.

[magnemoe]

Just now, VaPaL said:

@magnemoe I thought exactly the same. Well, lesson learned.

Yes and this is one reason you don't want to use parachutes then landing first stages, even if you cut them at touchdown you would be moving sideways at the wind speed. Its not an issue with splatdown as the parachute will land in water. 

[VaPaL]

@magnemoe A friend asked me why SpaceX and Blue Origin don't use parachutes and I didn't know the answer. Makes a lot of sence now

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, VaPaL said:

@magnemoe A friend asked me why SpaceX and Blue Origin don't use parachutes and I didn't know the answer. Makes a lot of sence now

They do.  Not so sure about Blue Origin (note the recent "two parachute" landing), but SpaceX lands the capsule with parachutes (at sea.  Presumably because NASA said so, although I'd be surprised if they wanted to bet lives on their landing tech).

Landing BIG craft with parachutes gets even worse.

[VaPaL]

@wumpus Oh yeah, I know the capsules use parachutes, they have to (at least for now). I was talking about using parachutes for the first stage

[CSE]

Boosters and palm trees.

[Kryten]

On 6/25/2016 at 6:25 PM, Matuchkin said:

Why does every Chinese rocket have four huge boosters with a red checkered pattern?

Most Chinese rocket are inline designs with no boosters. CZ-2F and CZ-3B have the boosters to deliver increased thrust without needing to increase the diameter of the core, meaning they can still use the same tooling used to produce CZ-2A, CZ-4 et.c. rockets. CZ-2F and CZ-3B are respectively the only crew-rated and the largest Chinese rockets of the old generation, so they get the most press coverage. CZ-7 is based on CZ-2F with engine change and stretched boosters, again using the same tooling. It has absolutely nothing to do with Korolev, Chinese rocket dev had been mostly independent of Russian/Soviet efforts.