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

[steve9728]

 The next step for Landspace is put the payload - a real satellite on their third rocket, the ZQ-2 Y3 rocket. if I remember correctly, this rocket is basically assembled in the last report.

Video from the Landspace launch site in JSLC: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Px4y1o7mw/?spm_id_from=333.1007.top_right_bar_window_history.content.click

What a nice day!

Edited July 12, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Global Times: In the ninth China Commercial Aerospace Forum held in Wuhan, Zhang Hailian (张海联), the deputy chief designer of CMS introduced China’s preliminary programmer for the manned lunar landing.

"At present, China's preliminary program for a manned landing on the moon is to use two rockets to send the lunar lander and the manned spaceship respectively to a circumlunar orbit for in-orbit rendezvous and docking, with the astronauts entering the lunar lander from the spaceship. Then, the lander will descend and land on the predetermined area on the lunar surface alone, and the astronauts will board the moon to carry out the scientific investigation and sample collection." Zhang Hailian said that after completing the set tasks, the astronauts will ascend to the circumlunar orbit in the lander to rendezvous and dock with the spacecraft and return to Earth in the spacecraft with samples.

Currently, the development of new rocket - the CZ-10, the new manned spacecraft, the new manned lunar lander, and the new manned lunar rover, etc. are ongoing. The manned lunar rover is 200kg in weight and can carry two astronauts.

Edited July 13, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

The launch video from LandSpace officially: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Km4y1E74j/?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0&vd_source=6fef304b8d0c4737896e6b702ddfbfb3

 

Looks like expecting to use CZ-5B to do that - the bad boy which were launching three modules of the CSS. But I'm not so sure that's the CZ-5B in the slides because CNSA previously have a plan to use a larger fairing on the original CZ-5 as an improvement. And meanwhile, CNSA also said that they won't waste the CZ-5B this model of a rocket, but it will be improved accordingly to be involved in other missions in the future.

tbh, if we don't consider some emergency situations like when a natural disaster destroys the signal base station and causes a disconnection in the affected area, satellite network constellations won't be that good in China. Because there's already built a lot of signal antennae in literally everywhere you can think of except for those nature reserves where no one will go in except the staff involved - and usually, that's all 5G signal, 4G at least. The place where you can get 3G or 2G signal, is the place where you can see the galaxy that night if the weather allowed.

Spoiler

Looks like some kind of shotguns shell to me

 

 

 

 

The Mars surface shot by Zhurong. Don't get this wrong, there's still no new good news on this little rover.

Edited July 13, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

21 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Global Times: In the ninth China Commercial Aerospace Forum held in Wuhan, Zhang Hailian (张海联), the deputy chief designer of CMS introduced China’s preliminary programmer for manned lunar landing.

"At present, China's preliminary programme for a manned landing on the moon is to use two rockets to send the lunar lander and the manned spaceship respectively to a circumlunar orbit for in-orbit rendezvous and docking, with the astronauts entering the lunar lander from the spaceship. Then, the lander will descend and land on the predetermined area on the lunar surface alone, and the astronauts will board the moon to carry out scientific investigation and sample collection." Zhang Hailian said that after completing the set tasks, the astronauts will ascend to the circumlunar orbit in the lander to rendezvous and dock with the spacecraft and return to Earth in the spacecraft with samples.

Currently the development about new rocket - the CZ-10, the new manned spacecraft, the new manned lunar lander, and new manned lunar car etc. are ongoing. The manned lunar car is 200kg in weight, can carried two astronauts.

Also by this forum, CASIC announced the launch of the construction of an integrated ultra-low orbit communication + remote sensing satellite constellation. The "ultra-low orbit" means the orbit below 300km. By this orbit, it can achieve a 50% reduction in the weight and const optical payloads at the same resolution compared with the conventional orbit.

"This satellite constellation has the following characteristics: First, 'see clearly', the spatial resolution will reach 0.5m. Second, is 'see faster', the spatial information directly reaches the user within 15 minutes. Third, is 'see more', through the intelligent processing system carried on the satellite, the satellite end of the direct contact and inter-satellite communication and other technologies, eliminating the ground centralized data processing links, to achieve the spatial information directly to the user's terminal, conducive to the incubation of the satellite directly serve the public of the emerging industry ecosystem. Meanwhile, the cost of a single satellite of this constellation will be lower, to achieve the same resolution of optical in and weight, cost reduction of 50%." Zhang Nan (张楠), chief designer of the satellite constellation introduced.

"At the phase of tech and service validation, 9 of these satellites will launch to form a satellite nest in 2024. In 2025, build a demonstration system for immediate essential business applications to provide one-day service response capability. At the phase of large-scale networking, it will complete widespread application in the industry. Form a large-scale network and achieve half-hourly response capability. It is planned that in 2030. 300 sats will be completed for network operation. Providing visible light, SAR, hyperspectral, and infrared multi-type full-time remote sensing service system and forming a global 15-minute response capability. The last phase, the integration, and development, will complete the comprehensive construction of the business system, achieve a global instant business response capability of less than 10 minutes and provide a complete instant sensing service."

The report also presupposes an emergency situation: when an unexpected situation occurs, inter-satellite transmission and the intelligent processing system carried on the satellite can efficiently photograph and extract key information, relying on the network to directly transmit to the vehicle or portable terminal. Within 15 minutes, the front-line disposal unit and front-line command organizations will be provided with high-time-sensitive images of the scene in the disaster area. Thus, it can efficiently support emergency rescue and auxiliary decision-making.

 

Last night by CCTV13: official timetable announced for future Chang'e program:

• Around 2024 launch Chang'e-6;
• Around 2026 launch Chang'e-7;
• 2027 finished the maiden flight of CZ-10;
• 2028 launch Chang'e-8
• Before 2030, taikonaut reach the moon

[steve9728]

 

 

26×2=52t in total. Personally, I hope CNSA will really take the little foldable "life-saving rover" on the Lunar rover. Not only for safety's sake but also the idea of a little foldable backup rover is really cool.

 

 

[Minmus Taster]

8 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

The race is finally on! This should be fun 

[steve9728]

 

And something new: the third image he posts - CNSA's some kind of new imagination about future lunar exploration.

"With regard to the construction of the Lunar research and experiment station. First, a lunar surface mobile laboratory with wide-range mobility will be launched, which will be capable of long-term unmanned and autonomous activities on the lunar surface and will be able to support the short-term stationing of astronauts. After that, corresponding modules will be launched and assembled into a lunar surface research experiment station, so that it will have the ability to stay on the moon in the medium term, and consideration can also be given to making use of the in-situ resources of the moon surface for the construction of lunar surface facilities, so as to further expand the functions of the lunar research experiment station. The above is only a preliminary idea, and further programme validation will be required later."

12 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

The race is finally on! This should be fun 

It has to be said that the Chinese side's attitude towards the US is more like "it's best that they succeed, and it's somehow deserved that they're ahead of us. But we can't stop trying - we should follow our own timetable and scientific development needs to go: their success or not and when they make it has little to do with us."

Edited July 13, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

RIP the camera.

The camera:

via. https://weibo.com/7792913094/N9IkSyMKm

[steve9728]

CASC: Two CZ-2F rockets are undergoing simultaneous assembly tests.

"Recently, in the plant of the Assembly Division of the 211 Factory of the First Academy of CASC, two CZ-2F rockets are undergoing simultaneous assembly and testing, of which the testing of the Long 2F Remote Eighteen Rocket is expected to be completed at the end of July.

The CZ-2F Y18 rocket passed the assembly review in February this year and began assembly. It completed the assembly in June and entered the testing state. It is expected to leave the factory in September to carry out the subsequent Shenzhou spacecraft launch mission."

[SunlitZelkova]

I’m out of reactions for today  So much exciting news!

On 7/13/2023 at 9:51 AM, Minmus Taster said:

The race is finally on! This should be fun 

Assuming that Ars Technica article is correct and Artemis 3 is pushed back to 2028, taikonauts may very well end up as the first Asians to land on the Moon, assuming NASA decides to have the first Artemis crew be either all American or America + ESA (I just don’t see Japan getting there ahead of an ESA astronaut, when ESA may have a lot of clout in the program given their role in building Orion).

In addition, the Chinese landing may occur in 2029, so just one year after Artemis 3. There has been a lot of jockeying for lunar resources, so let’s hope tensions don’t flare up in space or on Earth in the meantime.

[steve9728]

CMS: "We will launch a call for names of new manned spacecraft and manned lunar landers in the future. Guys, have you got any idea?"

Personally, I object to using "Shuguang (曙光, Dawn in English)" because that conflicts with the radio call sign of the astronauts' life support team on the ground. And there's pretty romantic, I think, about the "successors on the march" calling the "former pioneers". Second, I think it's a good idea to try not to look to mythology for inspiration.

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

CCTV: "The wind tunnel is 167m long and can reproduce flight conditions at about 30 times the speed of sound and at altitudes of 40 to 90km. The flow field blown out of the wind tunnel has a diameter of 2.5m and can hold a wind speed of Mach 10 for 40 milliseconds. The temperature can be flexibly switched between 2,500~18,000°C and the air pressure between 100~10,000 atmospheres. The size of the experimental model can be up to 1m in diameter and 8m in length. Together with JF-12 and JF-22, makes China the only country with a wind tunnel experimental capability that can cover the full range of hypersonic flights."

Didn't officially explain JF stands for what, but I guess probably is 疾风 (jífēng, storm).

[steve9728]

On 7/9/2023 at 7:27 PM, steve9728 said:

 

Looks like the recovery of the first stage has been tested physically.

CALT: Completion of technical validation of the reusable technology for a derivative of the CZ-10 rocket (i.e., a "bare-bones" model for launching next-gen manned spacecraft to LEO without a booster).

 

"Payload basic requirements:

1. Oriented towards the frontiers of lunar science research, with strong foresight and innovativeness. Reference directions: lunar geology and lunar physics, observation and physical research, space life science, as well as deep drilling on the lunar surface and the use of lunar surface resources.
2. Focusing on clear scientific objectives and scientific problems, with outstanding research value and predictable research results.
3. It has good engineering realisability, can adapt to the lunar surface environment (1/6g gravity, high vacuum, strong radiation, low magnetic field, large temperature difference between day and night, and moon dust, etc.), and meets all the conditions for the manned lunar exploration project mission.
4. In the unmanned lunar landing mission, the lunar lander will be released and separated and work autonomously. In the case of manned lunar landing missions, they may be deployed and carry out work with the participation of astronauts.

(1). The scientific payload for the unmanned missions to the Moon

• Total installed mass ≯ 260kg (can support multiple payloads to be installed and will separate from the lander after lunar landing).
• Total installation envelope size 1810mm×1510mm×930mm.
• Peak power <450W.
• Digital transmission downlink data rate ≯ 10Mbps.

   (2). The scientific payload for a manned mission to the Moon

• Total upward mass ≯ 60kg, total envelope size 980mm × 800mm × 550mm.
• Recovery total mass ≯50kg, total envelope size 550mm×320mm×300mm (2pcs)
• Peak power <500W (short time), average value ≯100W.

   (3). Lunar surface drilling payload

• Total mass ≯ 290kg, total envelope dimensions 1810mm × 1510mm × 930mm, with the ability to move, obstacle avoidance and meet the working hours of lunar surface survival.
• Peak power <450W.
• With ≮10m lunar sample drilling, order preservation, fidelity and encapsulation, and other capabilities, and can be drilled in the thermal, magnetic, seismic, and other detection."

 

A movable drilling rig of less than 290 kg can drill at least more than 10m deep - man that thing is even heavier than the lunar rover which is around 200kg on the schedule! 

Edited July 17, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

One more player on the table. This is one of the most serious Chinese commercial rocket companies I've seen on cg graphics.

Edited July 18, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

 

[steve9728]

 

Brilliant as always. And he's almost the only "foreigner" who can pronounce "Zhuque" correctly I've seen 

Edited July 18, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

First one: The Deadline: Jia Yang (贾阳), the scientist of CAS said that Zhurong the Mars rover's transition from hibernation to autonomous awakening was from December of last year to December of this year. Which means the deadline for awakening is this December.

Second one: Zhurong, is the first Mars rover from China. 185cm in height, and around 240kg in weight. The design life is 90 Martian days, equivalent to about 92 Earth days. Actual work was 347 working days.

My understanding of this is "the doctor comes out of the operating room and says to the relatives 'Please prepare yourself'".

 

 

The words on this: Earth-Moon System Direct Express

Edited July 19, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Tiangong TV S05E08: the crew is preparing for the incoming EVA mission.

Still full of parcels!

[steve9728]

CMS: Publication of the list of space breeding experiment projects for the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft

"CMS organized experts to evaluate the declared projects and selected 136 copies of space breeding experimental materials from 53 institutions were selected on board. These included 47 agricultural crops (12 seeds of food crops, 28 seeds of cash crops, and 7 saline-tolerant plants); 76 forest herbaceous, floral, and medicinal plants (17 forest trees, 21 forages, 7 flowers, and 31 medicinal plants); and 13 microorganisms and other species (2 agricultural microbial strains, 3 industrial microbial strains, 3 edible mushrooms, and 5 species of algae and mosses)."

I take a look at the list attached. It basically covers everything you can buy in the supermarket that you can eat: from grains such as rice, wheat, maize, and buckwheat, to fruits such as pears, grapes, raspberries, and passion fruit. From cash crops such as peppers, oilseeds, peas, and tomatoes to forages such as alfalfa, cattails, camel thorns, and white sorghum. Microorganisms include bacillus, human gut bacteria, probiotics, lactobacilli, and aromatic bacteria.

add: At the end of the announcement there is another sentence: "Plants carried by manned spaceflight is a public service - it doesn't charge any fees for this. Any organizations or individuals are prohibited from using this for false propaganda and commercial speculation."

Well, a decade ago, the early Shenzhou missions also bring many seeds into space. And then those in the market that are unusual in appearance, size, or color are given the prefix "space"...

"Do you really believe in the things you write on your signboard?"

Edited July 19, 2023 by steve9728

[darthgently]

56 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

CMS: Publication of the list of space breeding experiment projects for the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft

"CMS organized experts to evaluate the declared projects and selected 136 copies of space breeding experimental materials from 53 institutions were selected on board. These included 47 agricultural crops (12 seeds of food crops, 28 seeds of cash crops, and 7 saline-tolerant plants); 76 forest herbaceous, floral, and medicinal plants (17 forest trees, 21 forages, 7 flowers, and 31 medicinal plants); and 13 microorganisms and other species (2 agricultural microbial strains, 3 industrial microbial strains, 3 edible mushrooms, and 5 species of algae and mosses)."

I take a look at the list attached. It basically covers everything you can buy in the supermarket that you can eat: from grains such as rice, wheat, maize, and buckwheat, to fruits such as pears, grapes, raspberries, and passion fruit. From cash crops such as peppers, oilseeds, peas, and tomatoes to forages such as alfalfa, cattails, camel thorns, and white sorghum. Microorganisms include bacillus, human gut bacteria, probiotics, lactobacilli, and aromatic bacteria.

I like this broad approach very much

[steve9728]

32 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I like this broad approach very much

In early Shenzhou missions, they brought pumpkin seeds up there. Then our city, being in the hot south - a great place for plant breeding - has a sizeable "space plant breeding greenhouses". The school organized a visit there when I was in primary school. I swear those plants are the strangest looking I've ever seen till now: it's still a bit of a shock about 200kg of real pumpkin in front of a bunch of kids less than 10 years old.

[steve9728]

Tianmu, 天目, Sky Eyes in English

[steve9728]

CMS: "At 21:40 CST on 20 July 2023, after about 8 hours of EVA, Shenzhou-16 astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu, and Gui Haichao worked closely together, with the support of the CSS's robotic arm, completed all the established tasks for the EVA mission. Jing Haipeng and Zhu Yangzhu returned safely to the station's WT module.

During this EVA, the astronauts completed the installation and lifted the support for the panoramic camera B on the core module, unlocking and lifting the panoramic camera A and B at the MT module. The entire process was smooth and successful. Jing Haipeng, who has gone to space four times, has fulfilled his dream of space walk with 15 years since the Shenzhou-7 mission. Zhu Yangzhu has become the first space flight engineer in China to finish the EVA mission.

According to the plan, the crew will subsequently carry out a large number of space science experiments and participate in the completion of the number of application payload installation missions."

Spoiler

(There are 13 photos in total at the link I attached)

My little stats can be updated

Edited July 21, 2023 by steve9728
The timing of Shenzhou-16 EVA I has been further refined according to a credible source

[steve9728]

The engineers who were clapping hands at 0:41 are the astronaut ground support team. Radio call sign "Shuguang (曙光)"

Edited July 22, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Lemon Tree is the first English song that many Chinese children will sing and remember.

Spoiler

But my first English song was 21 Guns lol