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

[DAL59]

LOL they've already started

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Our intern worked one day and night to make this animation.

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Chang'e 6's lunar samples show the age of the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the moon (and presumably its surface, which is rugged and cratered, vastly different from the near side) as 2830 million years, with a lack of radioactive elements that scientific theories thought would have kept the magma molten.

Science link to article

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Anything you can do...: https://spacenews.com/china-quietly-tested-its-first-inflatable-space-module-in-orbit/

An interesting test (even if it does look more like an inflated beachball), but a technical detail is that Shijian-19 had a total mass of 3.5 tons, and the payload of the recoverable section was 5-600kg. An unknown portion of it is still up there, possibly with the test module still attached.

[DAL59]

LMX fairing test:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/17a3CpFGhFGNrygkeDXHZw

The GIF doesn't imbed for some reason (great firewall?)

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Landspace's methalox Zhuque-2E launched recently:

 

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Podcast interview of Slovenian photographer Matjaž Tančič, who has lived in China for ten years and has an explanation of ordinary life for the Chinese and the attitude in China towards space industry. As always, I go to "Show Transcript" and read:

tl;dr You can go from photographing rocket launches to tribes that haven't changed their practices for a century in the same country.

Shanghai more cosmopolitan.

Practically a cashless society. WeChat Pay and Alipay does everything. In the larger, newer cities there are drone deliveries where the delivery guy sends a bot into the building and it comes to your door.

It's very safe for the average citizen, because the consequences of committing a crime and losing access to the network are dire. The little old ladies sitting on a street corner wearing a red band are the eyes and ears

He shot a Mars simulation, and a rover that was inspired by camels, being tested in the Gobi Desert. Just after that, he flew to Los Angeles for a holiday and on a whim, he googled "Mars exploration Los Angeles" and found not one or two hits but hundreds: Mars architects, Mars farmers, Mars chefs, Mars fashion designers, Mars psychologists, Mars urban planners, Mars watch maker... He decided to stay.

These entrepreneurs were also concerned about using these technologies to assist with problems here on Earth. Dr Susan Joule (spelling?) is developing a VR avatar, telling medical staff where to cut and so on, for remote operation on Mars and Earth. These could be air-dropped during natural disasters.

Armenian watchmaker Garo Anserlian, with a shop near JPL, modifies watches to run to the Martian day - the Sol - and they were worn by several engineers working on Mars Rovers, who worked to the sunrise and sunset of Mars, when the solar panels gained/lost power.

This inspired his exploration of New Space: in the 60s, it was very much a race of white males to go to the Moon, take a selfie and plant a flag [reductive much? But not wholly wrong]. Here, now, it's a bunch of people all over the world - China, USA, Japan, South Africa and Europe - who will never get to go to the Moon or Mars, but are working on smaller pieces of the larger puzzle: growing food, what clothes to wear, psychology, what kind of lights should be in the base, and so on. Because a Mars expedition is going to take a while to get there.

The Slovenian (then Hungarian) Herman Potočnik designed the first spin-gravity space station, detailing it in a 1928 book published in Germany.

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Moon Monday Report on the Chinese-hosted Galaxy Forum.

• Featured former NASA astronaut Donald Thomas as a speaker.
• Goals for International Lunar Research Station (IRLS): Learn about our Moon’s evolution & structure; Conduct lunar-based astronomy for doing cosmology and studying habitable exoplanets; Observe the Sun and Earth from the scientifically unique vantage point of our Moon; Conduct lunar-based experiments like studying plant growth.
• NAOC/CAS target launch year for the proposed lunar orbital satellite constellation called Discovering Sky at Longest wavelength (DSL) is 2027. It will have a 'mother' satellite and eight trailing 'daughters'.
• Thailand's NARIT, one of the partners in the IRLS, has ambitions of launching a Lunar Pathfinder nanosat, possibly to be launched on a Chinese rocket.
• The slide opposite detailed NARIT's 40m radio telescope, which will be used to track spacecraft in conjunction with China's own Deep Space Network: a 25m one in Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Nanshan, and the massive 65m one in Tianma, Shanghai.

 

[DAL59]

https://english.news.cn/20241029/f3b00a0da3f842319b90e5606825d1b6/c.html

The production and ground tests of prototypes of the Long March-10 carrier rocket, the manned spacecraft Mengzhou, the lunar lander Lanyue, the space suit and the manned lunar rover are underway as planned, said Lin Xiqiang, spokesperson for the CMSA.

A series of major tests have been completed, including the integrated airdrop test for the spacecraft, the separation test for the two modules of the lander, the test firing of the three-engine power system for the rocket's first stage, and the high-altitude simulation test for the hydrogen-oxygen engine.

Ground systems including the launch site, telemetry and control communications, and the landing site are being developed and constructed, 

[DAL59]

I think its fair to say after the recent delay the moon race is tied. LM10 development is currently behind SLS, but it is a smaller rocket who's development has been proceding very quickly and smoothly, with dates actually moving up instead of down. Lanyue is also ahead of Lunar LHS if they are already conducting hardware tests, and they plan to have a rover on the first mission instead of waiting to Artemis V. 

[SunlitZelkova]

22 hours ago, DAL59 said:

I think its fair to say after the recent delay the moon race is tied. LM10 development is currently behind SLS, but it is a smaller rocket who's development has been proceding very quickly and smoothly, with dates actually moving up instead of down. Lanyue is also ahead of Lunar LHS if they are already conducting hardware tests, and they plan to have a rover on the first mission instead of waiting to Artemis V. 

There is no race. China’s development would be proceeding along the same pace even if Artemis III landed on the Moon two months ago.

It should be noted the two programs are also very different. The Chinese program is an initial exploration program more akin to Apollo, albeit with the intent to establish a base. Artemis is trying to a build a sustainable sustained presence there. China will not have a Starship-like capability until 2035 at the earliest, if not longer (the publicly shown designs and declared development plans of Long March 9 keep changing).

Similar to their early crewed orbital flights, I would expect Chinese lunar missions to be fairly slow in pacing as well, with incremental improvements to the spacecraft and launch vehicle along the way. Due to the costs of Lanyue (which uses a crasher stage) China might not fly lunar missions with a cadence on par with the ones to Tiangong until the late 2030s or 2040s, after Long March 9 is in service.

[Mr. Kerbin]

2 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

There is no race. China’s development would be proceeding along the same pace even if Artemis III landed on the Moon two months ago.

It should be noted the two programs are also very different. The Chinese program is an initial exploration program more akin to Apollo, albeit with the intent to establish a base. Artemis is trying to a build a sustainable sustained presence there. China will not have a Starship-like capability until 2035 at the earliest, if not longer (the publicly shown designs and declared development plans of Long March 9 keep changing).

Similar to their early crewed orbital flights, I would expect Chinese lunar missions to be fairly slow in pacing as well, with incremental improvements to the spacecraft and launch vehicle along the way. Due to the costs of Lanyue (which uses a crasher stage) China might not fly lunar missions with a cadence on par with the ones to Tiangong until the late 2030s or 2040s, after Long March 9 is in service.

Eh, it’s more fun to believe in a new space race.

Hey, I won’t be complaining if NASA gets budget not seen since Apollo.

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10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It should be noted the two programs are also very different. The Chinese program is an initial exploration program more akin to Apollo, albeit with the intent to establish a base. Artemis is trying to a build a sustainable sustained presence there. China will not have a Starship-like capability until 2035 at the earliest, if not longer (the publicly shown designs and declared development plans of Long March 9 keep changing).

I think it's akin to the Apollo Applications program, had it not been sunk prematurely by the cancelling of Saturn V in 1968. A true, in-orbit refuellable space-tug would make its resemblance complete.

It's not 1:1 - a lot of the hardware and expertise is coming from CNSA or its satellite campuses/companies, farmed out to private entities who develop them. It's like if NASA was also a military aerospace contractor... and MIT.