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

[steve9728]

First launch in June. 

"These first satellites are part of a planned constellation – the “Geely Future Mobility Constellation” – that will consist of 240 satellites, with the first phase of 72 satellites expected to be placed in orbit by 2025. The second phase will follow consisting of 168 satellites.", said by Geely, "Geespace’s GeeSAT-1 are the first modular, high-resilience, high-performance, mass-produced low-orbit satellites in China. They will provide centimetre accurate precise positioning and connectivity support for use by automotive brands in the Geely Holding portfolio, enabling true, safe autonomous driving that will connect vehicles with vehicles and infrastructure with vehicles to realise true autonomous driving."

Geely, the car manufacturer acquired 100% of Volvo twelve years ago for $1.8 billion.

[SunlitZelkova]

 

 

[steve9728]

So, how you wash you hair up there?

Another photo shot by Wang Yaping: The Yangtze Delta. The jellyfish like lake is the Lake Tai (太湖), and at the bottem left of it is Shanghai (via Weibo)

Spoiler

The second to the right of the four islands at the estuary is where 'something interesting' will happen

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Guess those 8K video clips which bring back to Earth by 40 1TB hard drives should be almost finished edited:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1jL4y1K7iR?spm_id_from=333.880.my_history.page.click

[steve9728]

After weeks of speculation, we now have a officially comfirmed the members of the Shenzhou-14 crew:

• Chen Dong (陈东), used to be the co-pilot of Shenzhou-11 and docked with Tiangong-2;
• Liu Yang (刘洋), the first Chinese female astronaut, used to be the third co-pilot of Shenzhou-9 and docked with Tiangong-1;
• Cai Xuzhe(蔡旭哲), second echelon of the astronaut brigade. This is his the first mission.

Shenzhou-14 will be launch at 5^th June, 10:44 (GMT+8) and will be docked with the radial docking port of Tianhe Core Module

Edited June 4, 2022 by steve9728

[tater]

 

[steve9728]

Well... our new astronaut, Cai Xuzhe, somehow looks like our foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian

"Next question please!"

[steve9728]

HERE WE GO!

[steve9728]

Success! Then we need to wait six and half hours for Shenzhou-14 docking with Tianhe Core Module

Tradition 'Big Red Screen' at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre control room:

"Congratulations on the successful launch of Shenzhou-14 manned spacecraft"

 

The reporter asked the engineer did they had brought any fruit like apples on board, like Shenzhou-13 mission did. The engineer said that they not only brught apples but also other fruits such as green grapes. I'm quite curious as to how this is keeping fresh.

Edited June 5, 2022 by steve9728

[EwTE_H]

Guess where they will rain the boosters

[Scotius]

5 hours ago, steve9728 said:

The reporter asked the engineer did they had brought any fruit like apples on board, like Shenzhou-13 mission did. The engineer said that they not only brught apples but also other fruits such as green grapes. I'm quite curious as to how this is keeping fresh.

Maybe packaged in nitrogen and chilled?

[CFYL]

7 hours ago, EwTE_H said:

Guess where they will rain the boosters

Roughly as below. It is (mostly) desert.

[steve9728]

Docked!

 

11 hours ago, EwTE_H said:

Guess where they will rain the boosters

Rational: CZ-2F rocket have no record on hitting other countries and second stage always targeting and dropped at the point nemo at south pacific

Irrational: all the rockets always targeting New York. The cross centre always is the Statue of Liberty

6 hours ago, Scotius said:

Maybe packaged in nitrogen and chilled?

Apart from this, the only other option would be to sterilise and vacuum bag it. I just woder if the liquid nitrogen will frozen out or vacuum will crushing those grapes.

Edited June 5, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

We proof the Newton's law of motion

[SunlitZelkova]

If the launches of Wentian and Mengtian go smoothly, the crew of Shenzhou 14 will become the first humans to ever be present aboard a space station for the arrival of two modules. Both Mir and ISS modules were either launched so far apart the crews couldn't have been there for the arrival of more than one module, or the crew was swapped out just prior to the launch of a second one.

[steve9728]

Saw a video about interviewing Chen Dong. He said his sons (he had a twins at home) asked him can he take them to the space with him? He replied that bird was defintiely impossible, there were only three tickets and all three of us in the crew had booked them. But, later, when you grow up, if you still want to, you can fight for it yourselves. You want to go to space this time, so I'll give you an assignment: why do you want to go, what do you want to do when you go up there, and I want to ask you when I come back.

Chen Dong: Then I thought, when Wang Yaping came back, she said, "The star-picking mum is back". And when I come back, it would be "The homework-checking father is back". I don't think the kids would want to talk to me

Edited June 5, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Shenzhou-14 carrying four types of forage seeds from Xinjiang to space. They are 'New Grass-1' Sudan grass, Camelthorns (alhagi), Ili sericea and Ceratocarpus. "The aim of the experiment is to breed breed characteristics that are more tolerant to salinity, cold and drought through environmental mutagenesis in space, which will be used to improve wind and sand fixation power, grassland productivity, grassland livestock carrying capacity and to combat grassland desertification, which will play an important role in the development of animal husbandry and ecological environmental protection in Xinjiang and the whole country.", said by Zheng Wenxin, President of the Xinjiang Academy of Animal Husbandry.

Edited June 6, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Shenzhou-14 mission start now. There will be five launches, five time rendezvous and docking, two times transposition.

First, Tianzhou-3 leave Tianhe Core Module and let Wentian Module docked with radial docking port.

Wentian's solar panels fully deploys. Then the combination turns and adjusts its attitude.

Use the indexing robotic arm (Chiense version ‘Lyappa Arm') to shift Wentian from radial port to lateral permanent docking port:

Re-adjust the attitude of the assemblage, wait for the docking of the Mentian and repeat a similar process:

Then Tianzhou-4 cargo ship leave CSS and Tianzhou-5 will docking with the station. Finally, Shenzhou-15 crew will go into space and dock with the station for crew rotation in orbit.

Between this may be performed the task of transferring the solar panels of the core module. I haven't seen any official information as to when exactly this will be carried out.

[steve9728]

Find a article (but it's fully Chinese) about testing the indexing robotic arm and in the article there is a diagram of this arm.

From left to right: shoulder joint linkage, shoulder joint drive mechanism, linkage arm, capture linkage mechanism, wrist joint drive mechanism, and wrist joint.

[steve9728]

CASIC's second institute made something cool for the forest firefighters: electric-assisted trolley:

It was a journalist who was experiencing this trolley. Obviously a journalist's physical training can never match for that of firefighters. But with more than 60 kg of fire-fighting supplies loaded and the trolley's power switched on, he literally darted uphill on a continuous stretch

Edited June 8, 2022 by steve9728

[Minmus Taster]

On 6/7/2022 at 12:43 PM, steve9728 said:

Shenzhou-14 mission start now. There will be five launches, five time rendezvous and docking, two times transposition.

First, Tianzhou-3 leave Tianhe Core Module and let Wentian Module docked with radial docking port.

Wentian's solar panels fully deploys. Then the combination turns and adjusts its attitude.

Use the indexing robotic arm (Chiense version ‘Lyappa Arm') to shift Wentian from radial port to lateral permanent docking port:

Re-adjust the attitude of the assemblage, wait for the docking of the Mentian and repeat a similar process:

Then Tianzhou-4 cargo ship leave CSS and Tianzhou-5 will docking with the station. Finally, Shenzhou-15 crew will go into space and dock with the station for crew rotation in orbit.

Between this may be performed the task of transferring the solar panels of the core module. I haven't seen any official information as to when exactly this will be carried out.

Huh, didn't know Wentian and Mengtian would get an extra pair of panels in between the large arrays.

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 6/7/2022 at 9:43 AM, steve9728 said:

Shenzhou-14 mission start now. There will be five launches, five time rendezvous and docking, two times transposition.

Ooh, many questions! 

How much of the space on the new modules is habitable? The big cylinders, obviously, what about the cone-shaped sections at the ends?

On 6/7/2022 at 9:43 AM, steve9728 said:

 

What’s the circular bit on the big square block of the new module? Airlock hatch?

On 6/7/2022 at 9:43 AM, steve9728 said:

Re-adjust the attitude of the assemblage,

Why is the attitude change needed to move a module?

On 6/7/2022 at 9:43 AM, steve9728 said:

Between this may be performed the task of transferring the solar panels of the core module. I haven't seen any official information as to when exactly this will be carried out.

Ok… but how? Is there/will there be an arm on the station that can reach that far? Certainly a better use of “spare parts” than the panels on Zarya/Zvesda. 

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Ok… but how

well:

On 4/2/2022 at 2:08 AM, steve9728 said:

And we can comfirmed the plan about shifting the solar pannels which now at the Tianhe core module to the both truss structure at end of Mengtian and Wentian module does exist:

And there will be a smaller version robotic arm for the exposed facility and they can join toghter, which means 10m long main arm + 5m long smaller arm:

Meanwhile there also have at least one robotic arm point at Wentian module:

(This module total length is 17.9m)

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Why is the attitude change needed to move a module?

The official explanation is that in this position the aerodynamic disturbances are minimal and the gravity gradient is stable, "like a pendulum that stays on the longitudinal axis no matter which way it turns".

Personally, I quite like this CNSA approach of always being cautious about what they haven't done and taking a theoretically more prudent option: after all, we can't save & load like KSP in the space.

 

There have three spacesuits already up there. So theortically, if they want to do it, they can send three people outside at same time when Shenzhou-14 and 15 all docking with the station.

Edited June 9, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

33 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

How much of the space on the new modules is habitable

Three more. And different with the sleeping bay at Tianhe which are 'horizontal', those three will be 'vertical'. But you know, there's no different about horizontal and vertical up there.

A VR link about Tianhe, Wentian and Mengtian. Although I don't really like the workmanship but it's better than nothing.

34 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

What’s the circular bit on the big square block of the new module? Airlock hatch?

Yep, and habitable part is at front of the square block. The blocks on the exterior is a fixture for extra-vehicular experiments. And the airlock at Wentian is little bigger than the existing airlock at Tianhe Core module: one metre and 85cm in diameter.

I forgot to mention one thing: Shenzhou-14 crew will do an EVA from the new airlock at this square block. And back to the station from the airlock at Tianhe core module's node to to validate the technique of going out and returning from different airlock and different module.

And since then, Wentian's airlock will be the preferred airlock, with the original one on the node as a backup.

[steve9728]

A picture about Shenzhou-14 crew in the simulated module for grond training in the Wentian module (via Weibo)

I can't totally comfim this was shot by Tianhe core module's node way or from the new airlock. 

"飞行方向" means direction of flight, which means the direction the arrow is pointing is Tianhe's node. "试验载荷" means experimental loads, aka the experiment racks. "区" can translate to block here and I think A block will be the SAS flywheels. Those wheels diffinatly will be really noisy so if you look at the design in terms of 'user-friendliness', the three new sleeping bays need to set away from A blcok.

Edited June 9, 2022 by steve9728