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

[steve9728]

 

 

[steve9728]

One of the CNSA's official Weibo accounts, Our Space: The rocket was launched at 12:59, and the satellite sent back the first patch of photos from Kashi, Xinjiang at 14:39

 

Tiangong TV S05E16: What do astronauts do after work?

Spoiler

Haircut, washing hair, looking the beautiful scene, and water the plants 

Edited August 25, 2023 by steve9728

[SunlitZelkova]

@steve9728 has there been any documentaries released on Chinese space food?

I know Japanese food companies have developed a special natto (fermented soybean) for astronauts because Earthly versions having stringy stuff that gets everywhere.

It’d be interesting to know if any traditional Chinese delicacies have been modified for consumption in space.

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

@steve9728 has there been any documentaries released on Chinese space food?

I know Japanese food companies have developed a special natto (fermented soybean) for astronauts because Earthly versions having stringy stuff that gets everywhere.

It’d be interesting to know if any traditional Chinese delicacies have been modified for consumption in space.

I hardly remember there was a documentary film specifically about this, but there were interviews of sorts. I can look it up now.

But the last time I read a book on the Shuguang program in the 1970s, CNSA researchers were looking into space food. They made more than 200 staple foods, side dishes, beverages, compressed foods, and semi-solid foods with more than 20 manufacturers responsible for civilian food production at the time. Many of them are still producing products today, including Meilin, which produces canned luncheon meat, and Shanghai Yimin Foodstuffs #1 Factory, which produces a wide range of products including ice cream and various ready-to-eat foods.

[steve9728]

 

Shenzhou-5: tiny little mooncake - 3cm×2cm×1.5cm:

Because that day was the Mid-Autumn Festival, aka Festival of Mooncake.

Shenzhou-6: With the food heaters on board, the crew can have hot fried rice, and freeze-dried ice cream at the end of the meal. That was a 2-man crew for 5 days and nights, so they brought 40 different foods.

Shenzhou-7: For the first time, they brought pre-made stir-fry dishes, including yuxiang shredded pork, pork chops, and mushrooms, increasing the menu from 40 to 80.

Because there's also China's first EVA for SZ-7, they took Chinese medicine into space for the first time as well. Due to the space environment, CNSA thought that it's easy to cause cardiovascular function and bone problems, so medical team have made some "space heart pills" for astronauts to bring up.

Shenzhou-9: As a technology validation mission for the current space station, the space food menu at this point already guarantees that the recipes would not be repeated for four days. They even had milk tea.

Shenzhou-10: The mission coincided with the Dragon Boat Festival in space. So, the crew had rice dumplings.

Spoiler

Normal on Earth: 

Obviously, that's too inconvenient to "unbox" them in space. But the most important part of it, the leaf, must be included. So:

That's a sweet one, red bean paste filled, my favourite one hahaha

Shenzhou-11: Started having many kinds of snacks and late-night meals.

Shenzhou-12: The recipes would not be repeated for a week. Including beef and woad soup, quinoa, and cinnamon porridge.

Shenzhou-13: Traditional recipe for Chinese New Year: dumplings, with 3 different fillings. The recipes include sauteed shrimp with water chestnut, fried rabbit with xuecai (a kind of vegetable, I can't find a proper English name for this), spicy tuna, and bread made with grated coconut.

Shenzhou-14: They plant lettuce and tomatoes. And eat them in space for the first time.

Shenzhou-15: Brought 70kg of fruits.

Huang Weifen (黄伟芬), the chief designer of the CMS astronaut system, said that the food in the station includes three meals menus on a weekly basis. Which are arranged on the basis of the survey of the astronauts' personal tastes prior to departure. The Shenzhou-12 crew and 3 subsequent missions were invited to taste and score hundreds of specially prepared foods. The results show that most Chinese astronauts like spicy Sichuan food, sweet and sour sauces, and hot sauces. The hot sauce is usually the first to be eaten.

The "most famous dishes in the station" summed up by CCTV are: yuxiang shredded pork, kung pao chicken, black pepper beef fillet, spicy lamb, chili goose, hot sour bamboo shoot, spicy dougan, etc. (The CCTV link is a news report, English unavailable)

Have to say that, the food in the space station right now looks a lot like our normal regular domestic economy-class meals on civilian airlines: there's a little bit of sticky, the ingredients are quite rich in terms of color, it sounds fragrant but actually does a bit of suppressed in terms of food flavour, as well as looks will be quite filling after eating it.

Spoiler

In the future, if CNSA makes an artificial gravity module in orbit, I'd bet at least 60% of the motivation is to fry something up there.

Edited August 27, 2023 by steve9728

[SunlitZelkova]

Thanks for all the info!

On 8/27/2023 at 3:46 AM, steve9728 said:

Which are arranged on the basis of the survey of the astronauts' personal tastes prior to departure.

Very interesting considering the ISS is planned without taking into consideration personnel preferences.

I wonder if this will continue, or if they might turn to a generic set meal plan once Tiangong expands to six or seven crew members in the future.

[steve9728]

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Thanks for all the info!

Very interesting considering the ISS is planned without taking into consideration personnel preferences.

I wonder if this will continue, or if they might turn to a generic set meal plan once Tiangong expands to six or seven crew members in the future.

I think this will continue.

Generally speaking, Chinese tastes are such that the more coastal and southern they are, the more spicy they can’t tolerate. Since the taikonaut brigade is from the military, it's important to describe the arrangement of dishes within the PLA: they usually make 2~3 dishes that more than 95% of Chinese people can accept + local specialties from the unit's location + dishes from that place within the unit that has the largest percentage of the population. 

That is, for example, I have a battalion coming to Guang Dong for cross-theatre exercises from somewhere else, and most of my soldiers come from the Northeast. So in addition to the staple food - rice, and fruit at the end of the meal - I need to prepare: the dishes that most people can accept: such as hong shao rou (红烧肉), stir-fried shredded potatoes, and black pepper beef fillet; a local specialty: such as steamed fish; and a hometown special for these northeastern soldiers: braised pork with vermicelli (猪肉炖粉条). (May not be so that accurate, but roughly the menu structure is like this)

Most of the taikonauts we know of at the moment are from the north and inland areas, and they are the ones who can accept more spicy food. But in the future, there will definitely be people from the coastal areas such as the recruitment in Hong Kong previously (if they really can make it lol). Their tastes will be hugely different from the previous taikonauts. If CNSA recruits some ethnic minorities in the future, as well as cooperation with other countries, they definitely have to ask people what they can eat or can't. After all, there are some religions and some ethnic groups that have taboos when it comes to some foods.

You can't just send some people from somewhere middle east countries up there and let them eat fried pork, aren't you?

The regular set menu will definitely exist- for those dishes that most people can accept. Some dishes will then be adapted to the astronauts' own needs and preferences.

Edited August 28, 2023 by steve9728

[SunlitZelkova]

11 hours ago, steve9728 said:

You can't just send some people from somewhere middle east countries up there and let them eat fried pork, aren't you?

Very true!

I imagine that giving spicy food to someone who can’t handle it would make for some interesting experiments regarding the load capacity of Tiangong’s waste disposal system lol.

[steve9728]

13 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Very true!

I imagine that giving spicy food to someone who can’t handle it would make for some interesting experiments regarding the load capacity of Tiangong’s waste disposal system lol.

It's some kind of torture!

[steve9728]

 

[steve9728]

 

CMS: We're asking the public for names for the next-gen manned spaceship and manned moon lander

Quote

IV. General criteria for naming:

• Basic intent: the naming of the manned lunar exploration project should base on positive aspects. It needs to fully reflect the core value of the manned spaceflight and related elements, and highlight the positive image about "the Pillars of a Great Power" and "Intelligently Manufactured in China"
• Creative requirements: The naming should closely focus on the theme of the activity. Please pay attention to the connotation of individual names, and take into account the systematic, coordinated and complementary nature of the names of the manned spaceflight series of vehicles. Embody the combination of traditional Chinese culture and modern science & technology and have Chinese characteristics. As well as distinctive scientific, technological, and exploratory symbols and represent the characteristics of the vehicle and its application value.
• Formal specification: the Chinese name should be concise and condensed, with no more than four Chinese characters in principle. It should be easy to identify, remember and promote. Traditional and remote characters should not be adopted in principle.

 

 

The crew tidied up the station. Looks like the experimental racks are already set up

And it's September now - the kids in primary and secondary schools are in session. Probably there will be another Tiangong Class.

[SunlitZelkova]

Quote

What would you name this duo?

Next Generation Crewed Spacecraft "獵戶" and Crewed Lunar Lander "河鼓" lolololol.

Spoiler

Orion and Altair, respectively.

On a more serious note, I'm excited for these to finally get names. Off the top of my head I think it would be cool to have names based on the Qixi Festival story, but the names of the two characters (Zhinu and Niulang) literally simply mean "weaver girl" and "cowherder" and thus aren't great if you don't know the context.

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

On a more serious note, I'm excited for these to finally get names. Off the top of my head I think it would be cool to have names based on the Qixi Festival story, but the names of the two characters (Zhinu and Niulang) literally simply mean "weaver girl" and "cowherder" and thus aren't great if you don't know the context.

The girl Zhinu(织女), and the boy Niulang(牛郎) get reunited via the bridge formed by the magpie (鹊桥) every 7 July. Now we have the girl "Chang'e(嫦娥)" on the moon, the literally magpie bridge Queqiao(鹊桥) the signal relay satellite at Earth-Moon L2 point, so it's pretty reasonable that named the manned landing module to Houyi(后羿), Chang'e's husband, famous for the myth of shooting down the nine suns in the sky.

Just don't know how the people would find the name for the next-gen manned spacecraft. Probably they will name it sky(天) something.

[steve9728]

Global Times: The launch was also the world's first unsupported land-sea general-purpose mobile platform launch and the world's first unguided thermal launch of a solid rocket from the sea. It's also the first time the domestic commercial launch entered an 800km inclined orbit.

 

Together with the previous cold-launched CZ-11 and SD-3 at sea, China now can both cold and hot launch multiple satellites at sea. Actually, CNSA and some of the commercial companies also planning to use liquid-fuelled rockets launched at sea. One of the pretty direct ways to solve the problem of rocket wreckage drop zone have to say. And I think it's likely that these barge platforms for launches will be able to serve as the recoverable rocket landing platform at sea in the future - same barge platform with different modules.

Edited September 5, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

The university in our city, Shenzhen University said they receive 100mg of lunar sample taken from Chang’e-5.

Xie Heping (谢和平), the professor of SZU first proposed the idea of “preservation for pressure, heat, quality, moisture and light” coring to obtain deep Earth rocks in 2018. And developed the related systems and equipment. Because this is reliable and feasible enough, this research were expanded to Chang’e program by CNSA.

The project they will be working on is a study of the mechanism of force and heat transfer between particles of lunar soil in the vacuum electromagnetic upwelling environment in the deep space of the universe. 

This is one of the sixth batch of lunar samples distributed.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

 

China Space News: CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission issued a joint statement saying that the top authorities had conferred a Second-class Space Service Medal on Fei Junlong, Third-Class Space Service Medal to Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu.

Edited September 8, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

 

Considering the recent Huawei Mate60 pro mobile phone, which can connect directly to satellite signals, it's unlikely that other domestic Chinese manufacturers won't be able to follow suit in this area in the future. The prospects for demand for megaconstellation in the domestic market alone are very promising.

Edited September 10, 2023 by steve9728

[tater]

 

 

[steve9728]

24 minutes ago, tater said:

 

 

Check out the calendar calculator, Tianzhou-5 was already served for around 304 days.

Spoiler

Little detail problem about this tweet image: only Tianzhou-2 have the robotic arm point for the robotic arm tech verification next to the docking port. All later Tianzhou don't have this.

[steve9728]

Someone made a GIF by Sentinel Hub about the Wenchang Launch Site.

Spoiler

(Can't upload the gif link. The new railway for transporting the rockets getting further than the first image in this tweet below)

 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

CMS: At 9:13 CST on Sep.12, 2023, the Tianzhou-5 cargo spacecraft which has successfully completed its set mission, has re-entered the atmosphere under control. Most of the Tianzhou-5 components were ablated and destroyed during re-entry. Some small amounts of the wreckage fell into the predetermined safe water of the South Pacific.

During the Tianzhou-5 mission, it completed the space hydroxyl fuel cell power generation experiment. The spaceborne energetic particle detection payload it carried completed its first extravehicular detection mission. Release the cube sat "XW 4 (CAS 10, Macau Student Science 1)". And break the record for the fastest rendezvous and docking between a spacecraft and a space station in 2 hours and 7 minutes.

Thanks for your service and farewell, Tianzhou-5!

[steve9728]

Apparently, there's something "rockets" were launched.

https://x.com/King9999915/status/1702130737166827723?s=20

 

[steve9728]

https://x.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1702184609407193219?s=20

Sputnik: Venezuela Will Send Its First Astronaut to Moon as Part of China's Mission

Edited September 14, 2023 by steve9728

[steve9728]

According to an advertisement about the study camps hosted by the Wenchang Launch Site, there are going to be three launches in WSLS: this November, December, and January.

Edited September 14, 2023 by steve9728

[magnemoe]

15 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Apparently, there's something "rockets" were launched.

https://x.com/King9999915/status/1702130737166827723?s=20

 

Obvious rockets, assume not orbital rockets as you are supposed to tell other countries about them. 
But could be some military test, I don't think the rule apply if rocket never leaves your country. 
You have that famous Norwegian suborbital rocket to study polar light who made Russia go an very low DEFCON number. I guess Norway put out an launch warning but as they was studying polar light they had to wait for it to be strong so launch window was wide. Some in Russian military got the "good" idea that we could use this to test response of out nuclear forces but forgot to add this is an drill to it. Rocket was going north so could not enter Russia but some panicked. Rocket was also far to weak to be anything but tactical as in an suborbital sounding rocket.