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Chinese Space Program (CNSA) & Ch. commercial launch and discussion


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  • 2 weeks later...

Today, CNSA held the meeting of Delivery of Scientific Data from International Payloads on board  Chang'e-4 Mission and Announcement of Opportunities for Lunar and Deep Space Exploration.

In the meeting, CNSA exchange data from the international payloads on Chang'e-4 with representatives from Sweden, German and Netherlands

Besides, CNSA released some information of future mission.

  1. Chang'e-6 will have 20kg of international payloads, half of it on orbiter, other half on lander.
  2. Asteroid Probe Program is planned now, with 66.3kg of payloads and 200kg of nano-satellites soliciting.
  3. The Core Module of China Space Station is planned to be launched in the end of 2020.

Source: 

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9 hours ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

So... if politics allowed (I'm well aware they don't), could they technically dock with the ISS?

There have been whispers of the Russians thinking about disconnecting their bits and going home (presumably burning up in the atmosphere).  You never know, perhaps they might sell their part of the station to the Chinese...

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On 4/24/2019 at 9:24 AM, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

So... if politics allowed (I'm well aware they don't), could they technically dock with the ISS?

Not at present, no. IIRC, the APAS the Chinese use requires a significant amount of kinetic energy to properly engage, which is why their docking to Tiangong 1 and 2 usually looked kinda Kerbal. Closure rates were... high. The ISS has put the new LIDS ports over the APAS, so they'd have to remove the LIDS to dock a Shenzhou. LIDS to Chinese APAS would probably break the LIDS port.

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8 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Not at present, no. IIRC, the APAS the Chinese use requires a significant amount of kinetic energy to properly engage, which is why their docking to Tiangong 1 and 2 usually looked kinda Kerbal. Closure rates were... high. The ISS has put the new LIDS ports over the APAS, so they'd have to remove the LIDS to dock a Shenzhou. LIDS to Chinese APAS would probably break the LIDS port.

If I am not mistaken LIDS is only present on the forward docking port, as the second one (or the first one by the order of the launch) was destroyed when Falcon 9 disintegrated on launch. There should be one more PMA with APAS port on it.

 

Then again, I may have missed something

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7 hours ago, Cuky said:

If I am not mistaken LIDS is only present on the forward docking port, as the second one (or the first one by the order of the launch) was destroyed when Falcon 9 disintegrated on launch. There should be one more PMA with APAS port on it.

 

Then again, I may have missed something

I thought they launched the spare unit to replace the missing one?

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That is what had me confused too. I know they had two ready for launch. The first one was destroyed on launch and the second one was launched in its place and is now used on front port of the ISS. I didn't hear anything about 3rd one being produced and launched. So that means that 3rd PMA is still with APAS port on it.

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