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

[050644zf]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Not a great place to stand:

 

 

 

 

If u check the sauce (in the 1st tweet) of it, it's one of the clips in the local news about the task group (ofc well equipped) located and secured the debris. 

I'm tired of this kind of designed posts creating unnecessary panics. I ald explained in my earlier post in this thread about the details of evacuation and just weeks ago CNSA tested the parachute system on boosters to perform more precise landing. Historical problem always need time to solve, no one can gives an answer that everyone satisfied immediately. Ofc i won't be able to stop ppl keeping using this kind of stuffs as jokes, but I sincerely hope we can take this seriously and be more objective. 

[tater]

21 minutes ago, 050644zf said:

I'm tired of this kind of designed posts creating unnecessary panics. I ald explained in my earlier post in this thread about the details of evacuation and just weeks ago CNSA tested the parachute system on boosters to perform more precise landing. Historical problem always need time to solve, no one can gives an answer that everyone satisfied immediately. Ofc i won't be able to stop ppl keeping using this kind of stuffs as jokes, but I sincerely hope we can take this seriously and be more objective. 

Alternately they could launch from the coast. China has rather a lot of coast.

Also, since we get pretty sparse information aside from cell phone videos... <shrug>.

I live in an area that looks sort of like the images above, and we have a suborbital launch facility—but nothing is allowed to leave the range airspace (or ground footprint) at all.

[southernplain]

2 hours ago, 050644zf said:

I'm tired of this kind of designed posts creating unnecessary panics. I ald explained in my earlier post in this thread about the details of evacuation and just weeks ago CNSA tested the parachute system on boosters to perform more precise landing. Historical problem always need time to solve, no one can gives an answer that everyone satisfied immediately. Ofc i won't be able to stop ppl keeping using this kind of stuffs as jokes, but I sincerely hope we can take this seriously and be more objective. 

Not sure why you are defending this, it is all self-inflicted on China's part.

They don't need to launch inland and drop spent hypergolic stages on populated areas, they choose to.

[YNM]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Alternately they could launch from the coast. China has rather a lot of coast.

With other countries right in front of it. They don't really have a clean access to the Pacific. There's a good reason Wenchang is only used for near-equatorial (so like out of KSC straight east) or polar (straight south, or with slight dogleg) launches. It's probably why they do their station on that inclination too and wouldn't risk putting it on higher inclination like what some other party asked, they already had to dogleg this one as it is.

But to be fair to them, they're phasing out the hypergolics. The inland launches are going to stay, they're a lot more secure and less problematic diplomatically that way.

Edited June 18, 2021 by YNM

[SunlitZelkova]

42 minutes ago, southernplain said:

Not sure why you are defending this, it is all self-inflicted on China's part.

They don't need to launch inland and drop spent hypergolic stages on populated areas, they choose to.

I don't think he is defending it. He says in the post it is a problem.

He is simply correcting. The tweet first shared implied that it was civilians who were standing near the booster. It was not. It was the debris recovery team with proper protective gear. There is currently no indication that any civilians happened upon the wreckage and went too close. Proper safety measures (albeit pure safety, the issue is still there) worked, at least this time.

As YNM said, they kind of have no choice. Wenchang will just create the problem of boosters falling in other nation's territorial waters (the "real" territorial waters, not the disputed ones). And they are trying to minimize zone in which it falls to make it easier to find and secure, with parafoils for example, which were successfully tested and will be included in most launches going forward. The reason it was not used on Shenzhou 12 is likely because the test of the parafoils was done only a week ago or so, and Shenzhou 12's boosters had already been built and it was not possible to modify them without screwing up the schedule.

[YNM]

4 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Proper safety measures (albeit pure safety, the issue is still there) worked, at least this time.

Less safety, more "secure". If I can satisfy life-safety requirements by asking people not to be inside a building when an earthquake hits (like, the entire time the earthquake happens) my life would've been a lot easier...

[SunlitZelkova]

2 minutes ago, YNM said:

Less safety, more "secure". If I can satisfy life-safety requirements by asking people not to be inside a building when an earthquake hits (like, the entire time the earthquake happens) my life would've been a lot easier...

IIRC, being outside during an earthquake is not automatically safe either lol

I'm surprised they don't try to do more education with regards to how dangerous the boosters are. If the situation occurred in the US, I would like to think a large number of PSAs and messages from local authorities (police) would help prevent such incidents. Or maybe they do take such measures, and the civilians who approach the boosters know, and are just really dumb.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The astronauts have boarded the station-

Some appears to have come out regarding early concepts for the Chinese crewed mission to Mars (!!!)

The slides use both images copy pasted from the NASA DRA 5.0 and the movie "The Wandering Earth" lol. This is apparently from a presentation given on China's Space Day (April 24th).

Spoiler

The mission architecture is basically that of the Constellation program (DRA 5.0) but using Long March 9, the 921 rocket, and the Next-Generation Crewed Spacecraft instead of Ares V, Ares I, and Orion.

In addition, the Mars crew and cargo transfer spacecraft use a combination of NTRs and nuclear electric propulsion. Rather than going straight to TMI from LEO, the two vehicles will slowly spiral out to high Earth orbit, and then the crew will board, before conducting TMI.

It also gives a very vague run down of the MSR profile, which is part of the precursor phase to the human Mars program.

There is a Phase 3 of the proposal (with Phase 1 being robotic exploration and Phase 2 being human expeditions) that involves establishing a Mars-Earth "econosphere". This would likely involve Chinese private space companies, and use of reusable spacecraft (there are fully reusable TSTO spaceplanes in development, along with reusable rockets).

This is a very early concept, and nothing will go forward until after the results of the Mars sample return are known, so it is possible this will all completely change or never come to fruition at all.

If it does however, given that NASA has a similar requirement (no human Mars planning until after MSR), and that the MSR missions are supposed to take place in the same timeframe, it would result in a race to Mars as both crewed programs would start simultaneously.

Of course, such a situation ignores what SpaceX is doing.

[tater]

To be fair we have seen many other videos with civilians around the disposed boosters.

Regarding the proper gear, that's great, but then it would be more obvious if the footage was from an official source. We used to see the teams with the blowers when Shuttle landed, for example as part of landing coverage.

In fact, more official documentation of that—showing the required protective gear—might cement in the public's mind that sans such gear... not a great idea.

[LHACK4142]

The MDV/MAV looks a lot like a Starship.

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, tater said:

To be fair we have seen many other videos with civilians around the disposed boosters.

Regarding the proper gear, that's great, but then it would be more obvious if the footage was from an official source. We used to see the teams with the blowers when Shuttle landed, for example as part of landing coverage.

In fact, more official documentation of that—showing the required protective gear—might cement in the public's mind that sans such gear... not a great idea.

Yes, no one is saying it doesn't happen at all, but in this particular case- the launch of Shenzhou 12- there have been no photos of unprotected people around the boosters, which is what the tweet implied had occurred.

In regards to how it would be better for more official announcements, I will quote myself from the discussion about the PR aspect of the Long March 5B core reentering uncontrolled-

On 5/11/2021 at 2:52 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

As much as people have been voicing their concerns across the world, I don't think anyone that China is targeting with the propaganda aspect of their space program- people who make decisions, whether they be the Chinese people choosing to tolerate communist rule or third world countries considering doing business with China- really care about the core stage, because nothing happened. None of those people think its a blunder because nothing bad happened. Of course if the core stage were to hit a populated area, that changes everything. But I think even if it were to impact land, so long as no one is hurt, "no one" (the targets of the propaganda aspect of their space program) will care enough to impact China's "operations" (doing business internationally, maintaining stability and the power of the CPC at home, etc.).

Of course stating they knew it would happen from the beginning while making claims of safety only further backs up that result.

China doesn't really care what people outside of China think, partly because they believe the West (or Western mass media) will likely try to slant the coverage negatively no matter what, and partly because the target audience for the space program propaganda aspect is domestic Chinese people, not foreigners.

It is possible they think releasing such images- of people in protective gear around the boosters- will produce a reverse effect, not raising safety awareness but instead creating fear each time a rocket launches. They would likely rather quietly work on preventative measures like the parafoils and search teams rather than cause a ruckus.

(In regards to Western negativity- a number of commentators from "reputable" news sources like CNBC claimed that the space station might have military applications, despite the fact is is open to international collaboration. Such baseless click bait reporting likely makes Chinese propagandists feel things targeted towards improving their image with the West are a waste of time)

50 minutes ago, LHACK4142 said:

The MDV/MAV looks a lot like a Starship.

The spacecraft uses aerobraking, so it might just be the aeroshell. It is a very preliminary concept, and the slides did use copy pastes from a NASA document, so the 3D artist may very well have added those fins just to make it look cool.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In regards to the use of nuclear electric propulsion, here is something I wrote back when Tianhe-1 was launched-

Quote

I think the purpose of their space program is to show that they can match the West, rather than show that they are better. If they do happen to do something first, then that's a bonus, but it is not the main priority, in comparison with the nature of the Voskhod or Apollo programs.

Interestingly, it seems the Lunar Gateway was in a very preliminary stage in 2014, and it was not decided that it would have electric propulsion. Whereas in 2014 it had already been decided that the Core Module for the Chinese modular space station would have electric propulsion and development of the thrusters themselves was already well underway. So the prize of "first crewed spacecraft to have a propulsion system other than chemical rockets" was not a deliberate design decision (at least not one in response to something someone else was going to do).

So just as NASA did not fly Ingenuity because they wanted to be the first (they did it because drones on Mars may be useful in the future), I think China's space program is not dictated by "trying to be the first/best" as much as it is doing useful things, while in the process showing everyone their society is *as* innovative as the West is.

It will be interesting to see what the use of electric propulsion leads to in the long term. There are rumors NTR development has begun in China (the only evidence is diagrams that could have been made with MS paint so I have not posted about it yet). Electric propulsion is probably on the table for use in a crewed Mars spacecraft though.

EDIT- Just to clarify, NTR development and electric propulsion on Tianhe leading to or being part of crewed Mars spacecraft development is purely my idea. There is still no detailed information on China's plans for humans on Mars, not even any academic studies of mission architecture.

I wonder if the use of electric propulsion on Tianhe-1 indeed is intended for evaluating use of electric propulsion for crewed spacecraft?

In a certain sense, apart from Starship, most Mars transfer vehicles proposed to date have been space stations with large engines attached.

[tater]

All space programs have military crossovers. Shuttle flew classified cargoes (the capability of the cargo bay was literally designed for them).

The trouble with closed societies is that at a certain level their leadership just doesn't "get" the way people in other places think. This crew launch was a change, if you want people to pay attention, you need to do it in real time, cameras on. I grew up in the Cold War, and we knew basically nothing about the Soviet space program—I mean we knew about it academically, but we really didn't... experience it. It was announcements of things that they did. Maybe some grainy pictures. Meanwhile NASA stuff was just "on television."

The Chinese program is closer to the CCCP model in terms of press—but honestly it seems like that is opening up a little, which is nice.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

(To the right).
They've brought a whole pack of cubics-rubiks!

That's wise.
1. To keep the crew sane in space.
2. As a 3d  attitude control system manual override. They can be rotated in three planes.

 

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

7 hours ago, YNM said:

Less safety, more "secure". If I can satisfy life-safety requirements by asking people not to be inside a building when an earthquake hits (like, the entire time the earthquake happens) my life would've been a lot easier...

IIRC, being outside during an earthquake is not automatically safe either lol

Why not build some kind of shelters outside, or at least safety platforms?
The water level is usually not 10 m high as I can see.

 

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I'm surprised they don't try to do more education with regards to how dangerous the boosters are. If the situation occurred in the US, I would like to think a large number of PSAs and messages from local authorities (police) would help prevent such incidents.

They probably could just rebuild the town in safer place, outside of the trajectory sector.
They have even uninhabitated cities at the Northern border, afair.

 

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

In addition, the Mars crew and cargo transfer spacecraft use a combination of NTRs and nuclear electric propulsion. Rather than going straight to TMI from LEO, the two vehicles will slowly spiral out to high Earth orbit, and then the crew will board, before conducting TMI.

Soon the orange clouds will sometimes start glowing blue.

On the other hand, the local citizens will have a chance to loot something interesting for the book shelf, as a night light.

 

6 hours ago, tater said:

To be fair we have seen many other videos with civilians around the disposed boosters.

The local pioneers (or scouts, idk how are they called in China) are probably glad to bring these tons of metal scrap to the school yard and get a certificate of merit.

They just need to be first, before the adults utilize it.

 

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

China doesn't really care what people outside of China think, partly because

there is no such thing as "outside of China", it's just a periphery.

 

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

not raising safety awareness but instead creating fear each time a rocket launches.

Usually a safety sign looks like this

Spoiler

Because the fear is the best friend of safety.

Edited June 19, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Beccab]

8 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

there is no such thing as "outside of China", it's just a periphery.

The world is split in "China" and "future China"

[YNM]

8 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

IIRC, being outside during an earthquake is not automatically safe either lol

Well, better than trapped in the rubble of a collapsed non-seismic-resisting building...

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Why not build some kind of shelters outside, or at least safety platforms?

They do exist for tornadoes and hurricanes. Problem is I'm sure rocket launches are more frequent and riskier than either still, wrt homes and properties (you can't tell where a tornado will land, so you cross your fingers and hope for the best, but you know where the path of a rocket spent stage/debris is, with some accuracy - at least compared to tornado shelter design wind speed maps).

Edited June 19, 2021 by YNM

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, tater said:

All space programs have military crossovers. Shuttle flew classified cargoes (the capability of the cargo bay was literally designed for them).

The trouble with closed societies is that at a certain level their leadership just doesn't "get" the way people in other places think. This crew launch was a change, if you want people to pay attention, you need to do it in real time, cameras on. I grew up in the Cold War, and we knew basically nothing about the Soviet space program—I mean we knew about it academically, but we really didn't... experience it. It was announcements of things that they did. Maybe some grainy pictures. Meanwhile NASA stuff was just "on television."

The Chinese program is closer to the CCCP model in terms of press—but honestly it seems like that is opening up a little, which is nice.

Yes. I am not trying to say that the entire Chinese space program is peaceful. But in the particular example I mentioned- the reporting on a mission to Tianhe-1- it is rather clearly non-military.

I think they are learning, at least a little bit, about PR. And it isn't just about trying to show off- they are also probably more confident. Things seem to have been much more quiet during the 2000s and early 2010s when there was a higher likelihood of failure, but as the Chinese aerospace industry matures, they can show stuff off while not worrying about a catastrophic failure.

At least I would like to think that. Hopefully the flow of what limited info there is continues and does not lessen as tensions rise.

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Usually a safety sign looks like this

  Reveal hidden contents

Because the fear is the best friend of safety.

When I said fear was not good, I meant fear as "constant fear for our lives at all times no matter where we are during the launch" vs. "fear of that thing over there that can't hurt me as long as I don't go near".

Because the boosters can kind of fall anywhere within a certain radius. Of course once it is on the ground people can know to stay back, but you can't stay back when it is falling rather silently towards your house.

[SOXBLOX]

13 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The slides use both images copy pasted from the NASA DRA 5.0 and the movie "The Wandering Earth" lol. This is apparently from a presentation given on China's Space Day (April 24th).

...

Do these people do anything original?

[YNM]

1 hour ago, SOXBLOX said:

...

Do these people do anything original?

Vehicles and rockets are pretty much original. Mission architecture... I mean what do you expect to be different, really ? It's all just moving between Earth and Mars, orbital mechanics and whatnot is all the same.

Document illustration... some say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Actually since a lot of the people who work at their programme used to work over at the 'western' space programmes as well it's only natural to think for them to have the same aspiration.

[DDE]

5 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

...

Do these people do anything original?

Never underestimate the laziness of interns.

Spoiler

 

I have some terrible Russian examples, too.

[SOXBLOX]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Never underestimate the laziness of interns.

Agh, my eyes! Do your research, people! LOL

[insert_name]

On 6/18/2021 at 11:06 AM, 050644zf said:

 

 

Why are they not using the masks on those suits?

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, insert_name said:

Why are they not using the masks on those suits?

They aren't afraid of being recognized.

Also, the hypergolic vapour kills any virus in air.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They aren't afraid of being recognized.

Also, the hypergolic vapour kills any virus in air.

And you once asked why I preemptively called you out for snark!

Well played, sir. 

[050644zf]

 

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, terry55 said:

I've read that Russia is going to build a station on the surface of the Moon with China. What do you think about that point? Do you think that really possible at all?

Any known R-C stations on the Earth?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Any known R-C stations on the Earth?

China-Russia-border-city-Manzhouli--e1586767551143.jpg (800×533) (pressablecdn.com)

This?