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

[DDE]

On 11/26/2019 at 10:51 PM, tater said:

adjust your location quickly!

It's an advice for the ages!

[tater]

3 minutes ago, DDE said:

It's an advice for the ages!

Unless you can't because you are quarantined.

[StrandedonEarth]

46 minutes ago, tater said:

Unless you can't because you are quarantined.

Oh, so they’re going to designate those tent hospitals as debris zones? If all the staff suddenly leaves, it’s time to worry...

[MedinC]

 

As a Chinese happened to see this topic, I want to share some facts few people knows.

Before every launch mission from XSLC TSLC and JSLC, residents of fall areas will be evacuated to safe areas by the government. No injuries have occurred so far according to https://baike.baidu.com/item/火箭一级残骸主落区

Residents with damaged homes receive high compensation, in fact some villagers hope their house to get crashed so they can build a newer and bigger one.

Meanwhile contorlled re-entry is being developed, last year a modified CZ-2C launched from XSLC with 4 grid fins on its 1st stage landed accurately on scheduled landing point in Guizhou province. http://scitech.people.com.cn/n1/2019/0729/c1007-31262054.html

Beacause CALT(China Academy of Launch vehicle technology, Chinese call them 航天一院, First Academy of Spaceflight) is now concerntrating on heavy launch vehicle(CZ-9 with12 YF-480s when take-off and Project 921 with

21 YF-100Ks) to throw some big stuffs into LTO and MTO,  and new gen kerosene-powered CZ rockets will all be launched from WSLC(where debris will fall into pacific ocean), reusable rocket is not a top priority.

 

 

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, MedinC said:

reusable rocket is not a top priority.

[Scotius]

16 minutes ago, Wjolcz said:

Too much money and manhours invested in outdated disposable rockets This story repeats itself around the world - national agencies sank so much resources in old technologies, they are highly reluctant to start basically from ground zero. Taxpayers will pay, after all

[tater]

 

[MedinC]

On 2/24/2020 at 7:35 PM, Scotius said:

Too much money and manhours invested in outdated disposable rockets This story repeats itself around the world - national agencies sank so much resources in old technologies, they are highly reluctant to start basically from ground zero. Taxpayers will pay, after all

you can't expect a lunar rocket to be reusable

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, MedinC said:

you can't expect a lunar rocket to be reusable

If the lunar rocket is used at all.

Having lunar ice, one can have a reusable ground-LEO shuttling rocket bringing fuel to the reusable interorbital Earth-Moon tug which delivers the fuel to the lunar orbital station to refuel a reusable lunar lander.

In this case lunar rockets are required only to build the pioneer base.

Edited February 26, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Wjolcz]

8 hours ago, MedinC said:

you can't expect a lunar rocket to be reusable

You can expect anything if you go big enough.

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

19 hours ago, MedinC said:

you can't expect a lunar rocket to be reusable

Why... why not?

Don't tell SpaceX. Or Blue Origin, for that matter.

 

But yeah, I understand that it isn't top priority right now. Moving away from dangerous inland launch sites definitely deserves to be the absolute top priority (for launch vehicle development).

Edited February 27, 2020 by ThatGuyWithALongUsername

[MedinC]

XSLC is about to launch a CZ-3B, send the Beidou-3 G2 to GEO, which is the second last Beidou navigation satellite. One more satellite launche will complete the 3rd generation BeiHou system by May 2020.

Translation:

 

Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Recovery of First Stage and Evacuation of the Masses

 

Dear Villagers:

According to Notice from superior department,  XSLC is about to launch a satellite on 2020/3/9 19:55 (GMT+8), our Tangjiafang village is in the first stage landing area. 

In order to successfully complete the recovery and ensure the safety of people's lives and property, the notice is as follows:

1. A meeting of village leaders should be held before March 7, do publicize and make sure everyone know the launch. 

2. No sleeping or gathering during launch,  evacuate to a designated place.

3. Once the debri is found, call town government immediately (tel numbers). Avoid touching and causing poisoning.

 

Tangjiafang Town Committee of the CPC

People's Government of Tangjiafang Town

March 6, 2020

Edited March 9, 2020 by MedinC

[tater]

 

 

[DDE]

On 2/26/2020 at 9:30 AM, MedinC said:

you can't expect a lunar rocket to be reusable

[wumpus]

On the  reusability of lunar rockets (taken from the Solar metro map the Kerbal metro map was based on)...

Sealevel - LEO: 9400 m/s - presumably reusable (although I don't think Falcon 9 reuses parts that supply more than 3000m/s, and the shuttle probably reused engines that provided less overall relative thrust)

LEO - LLO: ~4000 m/s reusable if and only if you aerobrake on Earth, you almost certainly leave the craft in orbit, and you resupply the propellant (and everything else you need) in orbit.

LLO - Lunar Surface - LLO: ~3500m/s and would be left in Lunar orbit (presumably not docked to any space tollbooth).  All the propellant issues from LEO-LLO, plus the need to haul them to LLO (ions might come in handy, as long as none of the fuel is cryogenic).

Note that if you *are* using ions to haul non-cryogenic propellant to the Moon, it might also make sense to build a fuel-depot in an elliptical Earth orbit with ~1500m/s delta-v.  This will require a two more trips through the Van Allen belts, but it greatly reduces the mass of fuel needed.  But it also is more than a bit silly just for getting to the Moon.  If the Chinese (trying to stay on topic) do this, I'd expect they are doing so with their sights clearly set on leaving the Earth's sphere of influence.

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[Nightside]

10 hours ago, tater said:

 

What’s the long march failure rate recently?

[insert_name]

3 hours ago, Nightside said:

What’s the long march failure rate recently?

For the long march 7 there have only been 3 flights including this one, the first 2 were successful, though the recent failure was the first flight of a long march 7A with a new cryogenic upper stage so that variant has a failure rate of 100%

[XB-70A]

11 hours ago, Nightside said:

What’s the long march failure rate recently?

Apart of the CZ-7A failure insert_name mentioned,

- CZ-4C failed to reach orbit due to a 3rd stage failure (Yaogan 33 - 22 May 2019)

- CZ-3B/E failed to reach the correct orbit due to a failure of the 3rd stage. Payload deployed lower than planned (Chinasat 9A - 18 Jun 2017)

- CZ-5 failed to reach orbit due to an anomaly on the 1st stage (Shijian 18 - 2 Jul 2017)

- CZ-2D failed to reach the correct orbit. Deployed payload lower than planned (Superview 1-01/02 - 28 Dec 2016)

- CZ-4C failed to reach orbit, reason still unpublished (Gaofen 10 - 31 Aug 2016)

- CZ-4B failed to reach orbit due to a 3rd stage early shutdown (CBERS-3 - 9 Dec 2013)

- CZ-2C failed to reach orbit due to a loss of control. 2nd stage Vernier engines structure broke during the flight (Shijian 11-04 - 18 Aug 2011)

 

Edit:

Counting all launches since 2010, the Long March family lifted-off 207 times, counting 2 partial failures, and 6 failures*. As a whole, that's still a 96.14% rate of success.

* Counting CZ-7A.

Edited March 17, 2020 by XB-70A

[Nightside]

13 minutes ago, XB-70A said:

Apart of the CZ-7A failure insert_name mentioned,

- CZ-4C failed to reach orbit due to a 3rd stage failure (Yaogan 33 - 22 May 2019)

- CZ-3B/E failed to reach the correct orbit due to a failure of the 3rd stage. Payload deployed lower than planned (Chinasat 9A - 18 Jun 2017)

- CZ-5 failed to reach orbit due to an anomaly on the 1st stage (Shijian 18 - 2 Jul 2017)

- CZ-2D failed to reach the correct orbit. Deployed payload lower than planned (Superview 1-01/02 - 28 Dec 2016)

- CZ-4C failed to reach orbit, reason still unpublished (Gaofen 10 - 31 Aug 2016)

- CZ-4B failed to reach orbit due to a 3rd stage early shutdown (CBERS-3 - 9 Dec 2013)

- CZ-2C failed to reach orbit due to a loss of control. 2nd stage Vernier engines structure broke during the flight (Shijian 11-04 - 18 Aug 2011)

 

Edit:

Counting all launches since 2010, the Long March family lifted-off 207 times, counting 2 partial failures, and 6 failures*. As a whole, that's still a 96.14% rate of success.

* Counting CZ-7A.

Thanks for the big picture. For some reasons I was thinking it was a lot higher. Maybe I was mixing up the recent private rockets that failed.

[XB-70A]

8 minutes ago, Nightside said:

For some reasons I was thinking it was a lot higher.

 

To be honest, I was a bit worried about the launch of CFOSAT (Chinese-French Oceanography Satellite, or Zhongfa Haiyangxue Weixing) on a CZ-2C, in October 2018.

Turned out, the launch was a success, and because the CNES was part of the project, they gave us what is to this date the only whole shot of a Long March launch: