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

[steve9728]

 

Should be the biggest propellent tank built by CNSA ever. However, the final plans for the CZ-9 are still not clear entirely. But anyway, it's a large diameter rocket, so it's reasonable to try out the manufacturing process.

[steve9728]

The Shenzhou 14 crew were decorated: http://english.news.cn/20230303/9f6a9845a23543209f7e8487ca288f04/c.html

Edited March 4, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

CMS conducted a voting campaign for the patches to the manned space mission in 2023, which the Shenzhou-16 and 17, and the Tianzhou-6: http://www.cmse.gov.cn/hdjl/bszjhd/tptd/202303/t20230308_53039.html

Because the designs are all pretty good to me, I simply don't know which I should vote for

Edited March 8, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

[steve9728]

801 Institute from CASC's 6th Academy, completed multiple system-level thermal test runs of a closed-space Brayton thermoelectric converter system based on a helium-xenon mixed mass. "Combined with the multi-parameter coupling to complete the system depth of variable operating conditions, successfully achieved a multi-energy power output within hundreds of kilowatts, is China's current space closed Bretton cycle thermoelectric conversion system's maximum power generation."

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5qHW_7__YnImaKBp2rmAPQ

[tater]

https://news.usni.org/2023/03/09/chinese-rocket-that-delivered-military-spy-satellites-breaks-up-over-texas

Disposal burns. Not really hard in 2023.

[steve9728]

15 hours ago, tater said:

https://news.usni.org/2023/03/09/chinese-rocket-that-delivered-military-spy-satellites-breaks-up-over-texas

Disposal burns. Not really hard in 2023.

On 7/5/2022 at 9:00 AM, steve9728 said:

Now I see why there have something sail like thing in the patch: CZ-2D Y64 rocket's loading component has deployed the biggest deorbit sail ever in China. In the fully unfurled state, the sail has an area of 25m². 

The sail tests on the ground:

"Without de-orbiting measures, a satellite of the 15kg class at an altitude of 700km would remain in orbit for 120 years or more at the end of its life; with a de-orbiting sail of 2m², the time in orbit could be reduced to less than 10 years."

Original source

Unfortunately, the technology for such a rocket upper stage wreck to make it burn under controlled is still something little too far ahead for humans in 2023. the upper stage of the CZ-2D rocket is not very big - not like something CZ-5B - it is a high 10.9m canister 3.35m in diameter: it's not much bigger than the Falcon 9's second stage. The best and most efficient way to deal with it at this moment is to keep it in orbit for as short as possible. And it did.

To be honest, I could tell from the title of this article what the content would be about, what quotes would be from whom, and what conclusions would be drawn... And it really wrote that.

Edited March 11, 2023 by steve9728

[tater]

8 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Unfortunately, the technology for such a rocket upper stage wreck to make it burn under controlled is still something little too far ahead for humans in 2023. the upper stage of the CZ-2D rocket is not very big - not like something CZ-5B - it is a high 10.9m canister 3.35m in diameter: it's not much bigger than the Falcon 9's second stage. The best and most efficient way to deal with it at this moment is to keep it in orbit for as short as possible. And it did.

F9 Stage 2 (13.8m by 3.7m dia) is intentionally deorbited into a disposal area with a disposal burn—with a NOTAM and maritime warning to be safe.

It is not far ahead for humans at all, it's the bare minimum to be competent.

[steve9728]

24 minutes ago, tater said:

with a NOTAM and maritime warning to be safe.

For China to draw this in another country's airspace, that's really ahead of its time.

I have a certain gripe with some of China's publicity departments: they tend to be too conservative, too "in the pursuit of staying out of trouble". I guess their thinking is "don't you have an efficient tracking system of your own, why do you need us to report it?". And then, well, that was it.

[tater]

7 hours ago, steve9728 said:

For China to draw this in another country's airspace, that's really ahead of its time.

That's why everyone does it in the least crowded part of the ocean.

That ahead of no one's time.

The recent OneWeb launch (posted ahead of time as one does):

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by tater

[tater]

The point is that if a country is flying a handful of launches a year, just starting out with a space program, then stages that fully disintegrate, whatever, they let them decay until they know what they are doing.

When they are launching tens of vehicles into space each year? They need to do better.

They can land on the Moon and Mars—they can safely dispose of stages.

Edited March 11, 2023 by tater

[steve9728]

3 hours ago, tater said:

That's why everyone does it in the least crowded part of the ocean.

I agree with the idea of drawing a "danger zone" in another country, or at least a place where other countries can see it and tell them to "watch out, there are artificial meteors incoming" (of course, in the last case of the CZ-5B wreckage, the CNSA officially published the orbital altitude and inclination parameters on its official website every day. But Nelson was still "I can't see it, I can't read it, it's not there" *shrug*). However, if you want a rocket upper stage that has already sent satellites to an altitude around 500 km LEO, with its de-orbiting sails, to crash into exactly 71% of the planet, and it's happened one year and two months later, I generally call that kind of thing 'gamble'.

We've all seen the China threat hype of letting rocket wreckage free fall lots of time. And we've seen the strange China threat hype of launching satellites up there to collect rubbish. Now we just don't know what the hype will be about hanging NOTAM in other countries. Except for China, all rocket wrecks fall as "beautiful shooting stars across the night sky." It's not a particularly big deal to pay for damage caused by rocket wreckage if hitting something. Not to mention that the odds of such a thing are not much higher than winning the jackpot.

One thing to be reminded of is that there are still lots of rocket upper stages flying in orbit from different countries. 

[tater]

1 minute ago, steve9728 said:

I agree with the idea of drawing a "danger zone" in another country, or at least a place where other countries can see it and tell them to "watch out, there are artificial meteors incoming" (of course, in the last case of the CZ-5B wreckage, the CNSA officially published the orbital altitude and inclination parameters on its official website every day. But Nelson was still "I can't see it, I can't read it, it's not there" *shrug*). However, if you want a rocket upper stage that has already sent satellites to an altitude around 500 km LEO, with its de-orbiting sails, to crash into exactly 71% of the planet, and it's happened one year and two months later, I generally call that kind of thing 'gamble'.

We've all seen the China threat hype of letting rocket wreckage free fall lots of time. And we've seen the strange China threat hype of launching satellites up there to collect rubbish. Now we just don't know what the hype will be about hanging NOTAM in other countries. Except for China, all rocket wrecks fall as "beautiful shooting stars across the night sky." It's not a particularly big deal to pay for damage caused by rocket wreckage if hitting something. Not to mention that the odds of such a thing are not much higher than winning the jackpot.

One thing to be reminded of is that there are still lots of rocket upper stages flying in orbit from different countries. 

The point is not to warn people where it MIGHT fall, maybe someday. It's not about the NOTAM. It's about the fact that decent launch providers place them into those boxes intentionally. A volume of space at a known time. On purpose.

This is SOP for any decent launch provider. Stages that cannot be deorbited intentionally, say S2 to GEO, are then put in safe disposal orbits.

A launch provider who makes crappy rockets that lack the margin for this simple act of orbital hygiene are irresponsible. Build better rockets.

Sometimes there are failures, and things are not disposed of properly... that happens to anyone, accidents happen. Launching without disposing of as many as possible in specific, safe locations is being a bad global citizen.

 

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, tater said:

A launch provider who makes crappy rockets that lack the margin for this simple act of orbital hygiene are irresponsible. Build better rockets.

Sometimes there are failures, and things are not disposed of properly... that happens to anyone, accidents happen. Launching without disposing of as many as possible in specific, safe locations is being a bad global citizen.

The rockets that are doing these things largely date from the 1980s or 1990s. The Long March 2D mentioned in the article you posted had its first flight in 1992. I tried to look up when controlled reentry of stages became a thing but couldn’t find it. In any case, due to the economic situation in China at the time the designers main focus was probably getting to orbit, not getting down. Getting down would require extra funding, funding that probably did not exist. If several proposals for crewed spaceflight like Project 863 were shelved due to financial reasons in the late 80s, I can imagine booster development had its fair share of denied projects too.

It would be nice if they could have done that it the late 80s and early 90s, but that hard reality is that they probably could not have. To give an idea of the Aerospace industry’s state, even today it is still a country that operates license built MiG-21s, despite having stealth fighters and the like. Right now there is a mix of old and new, but hopefully as the old goes away things will get better. Unlike in the 80s, space now has a huge priority, so I’m sure that newer rockets like the LM-7 and LM-8 will have booster deorbit soon enough. The presence of the parachute recovery system on the LM-4’s boosters is a good sign that their designers do have some regard for where debris goes. It’s just a matter of how long it takes them to retire the old ones.

[tater]

8 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The rockets that are doing these things largely date from the 1980s or 1990s. The Long March 2D mentioned in the article you posted had its first flight in 1992. I tried to look up when controlled reentry of stages became a thing but couldn’t find it. In any case, due to the economic situation in China at the time the designers main focus was probably getting to orbit, not getting down. Getting down would require extra funding, funding that probably did not exist. If several proposals for crewed spaceflight like Project 863 were shelved due to financial reasons in the late 80s, I can imagine booster development had its fair share of denied projects too.

It would be nice if they could have done that it the late 80s and early 90s, but that hard reality is that they probably could not have. To give an idea of the Aerospace industry’s state, even today it is still a country that operates license built MiG-21s, despite having stealth fighters and the like. Right now there is a mix of old and new, but hopefully as the old goes away things will get better. Unlike in the 80s, space now has a huge priority, so I’m sure that newer rockets like the LM-7 and LM-8 will have booster deorbit soon enough. The presence of the parachute recovery system on the LM-4’s boosters is a good sign that their designers do have some regard for where debris goes. It’s just a matter of how long it takes them to retire the old ones.

The Shuttle Main Tank was disposed of the whole time. 80s and 90s.

None the less, older rockets can be iterated to add new capability, happens all the time. There's no excuse, it's not like they built them 40 years ago, they are building them NEW. China has a spacecraft on MARS. They can do the astrodynamics to dispose of stages properly.

Rain boosters on their own citizens? Unethical, but who can complain? Randomly around the world? It's inexcusable.

[SunlitZelkova]

44 minutes ago, tater said:

The Shuttle Main Tank was disposed of the whole time. 80s and 90s.

None the less, older rockets can be iterated to add new capability, happens all the time. There's no excuse, it's not like they built them 40 years ago, they are building them NEW. China has a spacecraft on MARS. They can do the astrodynamics to dispose of stages properly.

Rain boosters on their own citizens? Unethical, but who can complain? Randomly around the world? It's inexcusable.

The Shuttle main tank was a first stage though.

Updating an old system costs money, and it is usually easier just to go develop a new one. But an old system is never just thrown away, especially if there is a demand for it.

An example is the Space Shuttle. NASA could have updated it to have some sort of launch escape system post-Challenger but did not, and continued to fly it after Columbia despite the major design flaws because it was necessary for building the ISS. It did not make sense to update the design despite the risk posed to astronauts, it made more sense to fund Orion and then Commercial Crew.

[tater]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The Shuttle main tank was a first stage though.

Not really. Shuttle mass to LEO, orbital altitude, etc would have been optimized by NOT disposing of the main tank, and indeed taking it to orbit as an asset (wet lab concepts) were discussed. Same as the SLS core. Both could easily be taken to orbit, and not doing so reduces payload—but it was/is done anyway, since doing otherwise would be entirely irresponsible.

The recent core stages for their station are a case in point. They'd have to suffer the loss of what, a few hundred kg of payload mass to responsibly deal with the core... nah, let it fall randomly.

 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Updating an old system costs money, and it is usually easier just to go develop a new one. But an old system is never just thrown away, especially if there is a demand for it.

An example is the Space Shuttle. NASA could have updated it to have some sort of launch escape system post-Challenger but did not, and continued to fly it after Columbia despite the major design flaws because it was necessary for building the ISS. It did not make sense to update the design despite the risk posed to astronauts, it made more sense to fund Orion and then Commercial Crew.

Doesn't matter.

The geopolitical props gained from doing objectively impressive missions like lunar and Mars rovers show that China is more than capable of impressive feats of aerospace engineering that definitively place them in the "big boys club" of space tech. They choose to do otherwise WRT dumping stages—both on their own citizens, and anyone at large on Earth.

Edited March 12, 2023 by tater

[steve9728]

1. Shuttle's giant orange tank is significantly different with all the rocket's upper stage. And when the rocket wreckage hits a farmer's property, the amount of compensation CNSA paid by is enough to give the victims "memory loss": Yep, on the Chinese Internet, some of the local residents who are often evacuated by rocket launches will post short videos saying "Gee, how come it didn't hit my house this time? "

2. If we are talking about the first stage "dropping the tank irresponsibly, such as the CZ-5B", I won't argue with anything. At most, I'm really wonder what the designers involved were thinking about at that moment. But don't worry, there should be in some documentary within a decade.

3. If we are talking about the second stage or the final one "dropping irresponsibly, such as CZ-2D this time". So, my answer is that no one in the world can currently land a rocket upper stage under controlled (where controlled is defined as a return like the Falcon 9's first stage), not to mention CN and RU, and even Space X's own rockets have landed in the Americans' own farms many times. 

4. Like our friend said that CZ-2D was a rocket developed from those of the mid-1970s. Putting a de-orbit sail on the upper stage is the best it can do. The most significant shortcoming is that the Chinese authorities haven't shouting to tell other countries "Hey hey hey, The man-made meteor shower incoming!" (weird) 

5. The siting of US launch sites is fundamentally different from that of China: the US did not need to consider the secrecy and security concerns and then placing launch sites deep in the mountains during the Cold War. But China needs that: both Xichang and Taiyuan were made for this purpose. And people living 50 years ago couldn't have imagined the extent of development in the surrounding area 50 years later.

6. "Development must be used to solve the problems that development brings." We can see plans about the new re-usable rocket and launching at sea. The more responsibly action I think the CNSA are already think and developing about that in a more feasible way. Currently, the CZ-2 and CZ-3 series of rockets are China's most reliable and economical family of rockets. To develop the next generation of alternatives may not be possible without a decade in terms of the objective laws of scientific development.

Edited March 12, 2023 by steve9728

[tater]

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

1. Shuttle's giant orange tank is significantly different with all the rocket's upper stage.

No. It would have been brought to space unless intentionally left with a low perigee—it's the propellants for "stage 2"—the Orbiter. The SSMEs, like stage 2 on 2 stage rockets bring the vehicle to orbit. Shuttle could have entered orbit with just the SSMEs. Instead, they left the perigee low over the Pacific (same as SLS) to reenter without completing an orbit—only a few m/s of OMS used to raise the Orbiter perigee. Many "sustainer" vehicles do this. Any sustainers and many bvehilces with boosters are odd vs the simple stacked 2-3 stage rockets (F9, Saturn V, etc).

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

3. If we are talking about the second stage or the final one "dropping irresponsibly, such as CZ-2D this time". So, my answer is that no one in the world can currently land a rocket upper stage under controlled (where controlled is defined as a return like the Falcon 9's first stage), not to mention CN and RU, and even Space X's own rockets have landed in the Americans' own farms many times. 

You don't need to land a stage 2 to dispose of it. You can let it burn up—by deorbiting it over the least occupied part of the ocean (and telling people, just in case).

I am not talking about first stages dropped inland. That doesn't affect me, they are not dropping them on my head. BTW, the US tested plenty of missiles in the 50s and 60s—from Cape Canaveral, and randos could watch from the beach (or a boat).

Leaving sustainer stages, or second stages in orbit is irresponsible. Doesn't matter when it was designed.

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

4. Like our friend said that CZ-2D was a rocket developed from those of the mid-1970s. Putting a de-orbit sail on the upper stage is the best it can do. The most significant shortcoming is that the Chinese authorities haven't shouting to tell other countries "Hey hey hey, The man-made meteor shower incoming!" (weird) 

Except wiki says it first flew in the 1990s. So, no. All that is needed is the ability to restart the engine, or to reduce the payload and add some RCS to the PAM

Edited March 12, 2023 by tater

[steve9728]

2 hours ago, tater said:

No. It is brought to space

Different in appearance, in principle and in the needs, they meet: the fuel tanks of the space shuttle are designed to allow it to break through the atmosphere. If you must compare, it's same level to the other rockets first stage. And the Shuttle needs to be in orbit in "months", whereas those ocean surveillance satellites need to be in orbit in "years". Just letting the whole rocket take them to sub-orbital and then relying on the satellite to change orbit on its own to where it needs to be would undoubtedly waste its precious lifetime. 

2 hours ago, tater said:

Leaving sustainer stages, or second stages in orbit is irresponsible.

And that's the de-orbit sail made for.

2 hours ago, tater said:

All that is needed is the ability to restart the engine

I'm not familiar with Western companies, but in this country, when a technology proves to be mature and reliable, it's always subject to a 'technology freeze':  no fundamental changes are made to the main design, but minor amendments can be made. Adding multiple starts to an engine requires modifications to the engine as well as setting aside a portion of the fuel are clearly not included.

And, if you are the leader of CNSA who can decide the design of rockets and here's two options: 

A: Modify the engines to add a bit of uncertainty to an otherwise exceptionally reliable rocket and set aside some of the fuel to take up otherwise valuable rocket launch capacity to satisfy a demand that leaves the Western media impeccable. 
B: Don't make such a modification, but by further exploiting the rocket's potential, do what would otherwise require a portion of fuel to be set aside and a modification to the engine to do so by installing a de-orbit sail. And using the wasted mass from option A to carry some heavier payload.

There's lots of orders from different organizations including PLASSF, many of the country's local government departments and many universities out there. More efficient, more economical, and more reliable is always the optimal solution. Not words o of praise and put-downs from any media.

Edited March 12, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

On 3/10/2023 at 10:51 PM, steve9728 said:

801 Institute from CASC's 6th Academy, completed multiple system-level thermal test runs of a closed-space Brayton thermoelectric converter system based on a helium-xenon mixed mass. "Combined with the multi-parameter coupling to complete the system depth of variable operating conditions, successfully achieved a multi-energy power output within hundreds of kilowatts, is China's current space closed Bretton cycle thermoelectric conversion system's maximum power generation."

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5qHW_7__YnImaKBp2rmAPQ

 

lol. the original link was deleted.

On 3/11/2023 at 3:37 PM, steve9728 said:

I have a certain gripe with some of China's publicity departments: they tend to be too conservative, too "in the pursuit of staying out of trouble". 

Yep.

Edited March 12, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

CCTV: CNSA will make a project declaration for the heavy rocket project this year.

https://view.inews.qq.com/a/20230311V047PZ00 (watch out, English subs not available)

[Codraroll]

5 hours ago, steve9728 said:

 And when the rocket wreckage hits a farmer's property, the amount of compensation CNSA paid by is enough to give the victims "memory loss"

That could also be a side effect of the fumes from rocket fuel.

[steve9728]

Hainan Daily: Tianzhou-6 has completed the factory-related work and it's shipping to the Wenchang Spaceport for a planned launch in May this year.

By the way, with further exploration of the capacity potential, the Tianzhou, can be take more supplies than before on its way up to the station. Starting from Tianzhou-6, the launch frequency was changed to 3 times in 2 years, instead of every 6 months as in Tianzhou-2~5. And that's also the reason why the mission patches voting for 2023's manned space missions for supply ship only have Tianzhou-6.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, steve9728 said:

in this country, when a technology proves to be mature and reliable, it's always subject to a 'technology freeze':  no fundamental changes are made to the main design, but minor amendments can be made.

That is interesting. 

6 hours ago, steve9728 said:

satisfy a demand that leaves the Western media {happy} 

This isn't about making the media happy.  It's about responsibility.  China cannot treat the rest of the world as callously as it has its own citizens. 

We get that there are reasons - everything from the race to catch up, the concept of 'acceptable losses' and a culture that recognizes collective action /sacrifice for the good of society - such that you guys are willing to accept what your government has done inside China... but the rest of the world expects 1st Tier nations to act like responsible members of the world community.  

China has proven it has 1st Tier capability with the Moon and Mars.  It is perfectly reasonable for the world community to demand of China that it act like a responsible nation.  

In this context - that means adding the systems to dispose of parts appropriately... When you refuse to do the minimum thing that others do?  It looks childish /selfish. 

So - back to the first quote - the technology of peaceful space flight is not mature or reliable if you are randomly endangering people (when you have the opportunity not to). 

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli