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

[SunlitZelkova]

Hopefully the core stage reentry drama gets moved to its own thread this time around.

[Beccab]

 

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Be ironic if China accidentally vaporizes their own Mün lander… 

[kerbiloid]

Just now, CatastrophicFailure said:

Be ironic if China accidentally vaporizes their own Mün lander… 

Be even more if a future lunar base.

[Abel Military Services]

Please use chinese.

 

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum @Abel101126, one of our forum rules is that all posts, outside of the international subforums, should either be in English or have an English translation. This is because not all browsers and devices support automatic translation.

[steve9728]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Be ironic if China accidentally vaporizes their own Mün lander… 

Jebediah Kerman in Kerbal 2 trailer don’t like that*

[steve9728]

6 hours ago, Beccab said:

 

 

Objectively speaking, it makes sense: after all, to smash something to the moon, this thing would have to break the second cosmic speed to get off the Earth at least. And if memory serves, it seems that in recent years Musk's rockets have only broken that speed by throwing a Roadster to Mars?

Anyway, the rocket is quite small compared to the moon, so it's better to smash it than to drift around aimlessly in orbit while threatening other satellites or probes.

[SOXBLOX]

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

Objectively speaking, it makes sense: after all, to smash something to the moon, this thing would have to break the second cosmic speed to get off the Earth at least. And if memory serves, it seems that in recent years Musk's rockets have only broken that speed by throwing a Roadster to Mars?

Anyway, the rocket is quite small compared to the moon, so it's better to smash it than to drift around aimlessly in orbit while threatening other satellites or probes.

Escape velocity, yes. Falcon 9 has sent things on escape trajectories besides the Roadster. For example, the recent DART mission.

[Beccab]

29 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Escape velocity, yes. Falcon 9 has sent things on escape trajectories besides the Roadster. For example, the recent DART mission.

Also DSCOVR, and soon europa clipper and a few lunar landers

[steve9728]

Someone on Weibo have deduced image of the CZ-8 Y2 rocket that will be launched some time later based on information from CNSA's official Weibo account.

Fixed previous error: this mission will carry 22 satellites instead of 40+

[steve9728]

Oh wait. When I searching the Chang'e 5T mission's CZ-3A rocket third stage, I found something really funny: this rocket carried a mini satellite from Luxembourg. So in theory, the next country to have achieved a hard landing on the moon would be Luxembourg if the rocket really hit the moon

https://spaceflightnow.com/2014/10/25/first-commercial-mission-to-the-moon-launched-from-china/

[steve9728]

Yutu II rover found glass globules on far side of the moon

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2095927321006964

http://www.news.cn/english/20220219/fe61f24855d94362847922d534f2c084/c.html

“By excluding a potential volcanic origin, it can be ascertained that the globules are impact glasses, and the precursor materials are not mafic materials. Among known lithologies on the Moon, anorthositic melt droplets are semi-transparent, and their critical cooling rate is much less than 5 K/s”

Edited February 19, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

A haircut after the New Year festivities is a "traditional item" for the Chinese, and so is the space station.

It's like my mum watching while my dad cuts my hair

 

[steve9728]

Several CNSA's news recently:

First mission of "Year of Tiger": CZ-4C Y30 rocket successfully launched Land Surveyor-1 (陆地探测一号) 01 Group B satellite at 7:44 (GMT/CST+8) on 27 February at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. 

“Land Surveyor 1 is a distributed SAR satellite system consisting of two L-band SAR satellites with the same design parameters, and is capable of flying in formation in orbit in both "follow" and "fly-around" modes. Same as the A-satellite, the Land Surveyor 01 Group  B-satellite weighs about 3.2 tonnes and has a total SAR antenna area of over 33 square metres, making it one of the largest SAR satellites in orbit in China at present. Operating in a quasi-sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 607 km, the satellite carries an advanced L-band multi-polarisation multi-channel SAR payload with all-day, all-weather and multi-mode Earth observation capability.”

CZ-8 Y2 rocket successfully lauched 22 satellite at Wenchang Launch Site. In this mission, CZ-8 rocket took 22 commercial satellites including Hainan-1 (海南) 01 & 02 satellite, Dayun/Xingshidai-17 (大运/星时代-17) satellite, Wenchang-1 (文昌) 01 & 02 satellite, Taijing-3 (泰景-3) 01 satellite. It is mainly used for Earth observation, low-orbit IoT communication and space science experiments, and can provide services such as resource surveys, synthetic aperture radar data support, IoT decentralised terminal data collection, in-orbit science experiments and technology verification, and vessel information collection and processing in Hainan and the surrounding provincial waters. This mission set a new record for China to launch multiple satellites on a single rocket.

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Mengtian Module (梦天舱段) has started it's AIT (assemble, integration and test) procedures.

"Recently, the prototype module of the Chinese Space Station Mengtian Module arrived at the AIT Centre in Tianjin from Shanghai, and has now completed its assembly work and is orderly carrying out preparatory work for joint testing of the assembly and inter-system testing.", said by CNSA's official Weibo.

Well, it means the Wentian module (问天舱段) which well be launch at May/June probably already 'packed up'

Edited March 2, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Zhou Jianping, the Chief Designer of China Manned Space Engineering said "Shenzhou-13 crew will be back to Earth next month. While Shenzhou-14 crew in orbit, two new modules will be docked to the core module. At the end of Shenzhou-14 crew's mission, they will meet Shenzhou-15 crew and working together for one week." https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FzDDXFnO4GQ_xMFXvWedCw

The mission of the Shenzhou's crew seems to be busier and buiser.

[Scotius]

Is there any spacewalk planned after docking? Would love to see if there's any difference between Tiangong and ISS spacewalks.

[Beccab]

32 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Zhou Jianping, the Chief Designer of China Manned Space Engineering said "Shenzhou-13 crew will be back to Earth next month. While Shenzhou-14 crew in orbit, two new modules will be docked to the core module. At the end of Shenzhou-14 crew's mission, they will meet Shenzhou-15 crew and working together for one week." https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FzDDXFnO4GQ_xMFXvWedCw

The mission of the Shenzhou's crew seems to be busier and buiser.

Does that mean from 14 onwards Shenzhou will be continously inhabited?

[steve9728]

5 hours ago, Scotius said:

Is there any spacewalk planned after docking? Would love to see if there's any difference between Tiangong and ISS spacewalks.

Objectively speaking, there can't be none in future: there have been four EVA missions already. And most of them were "lift the extravehicular camera and installing extravehicular equipment" missions if I remember correctly. 

There has also have sound from CNSA official channel said that they planning to moving the existing core module solar panels to the short trusses of each end of the two modules. Given the fact that the existing "Tianwen" module does have a reserved short truss structure. there is high probability that this plan is in place. And if CNSA want to achieve this, it cannot be done without EVA missions.

The first EVA mission done by Shenzhou -12 crew

The second EVA mission done by Shenzhou-12 crew

The third EVA mission done by Shenzhou-13 crew (the first Chinese female EVA mission)

The forth EVA mission done by Shenzhou-13 crew

I hope photographer can be selected for the astronaut echelon

4 hours ago, Beccab said:

Does that mean from 14 onwards Shenzhou will be continously inhabited?

I think when "Wentian" module launch, it will have the full capabiltiy to do so: first, while Shenzhou-13 in orbit, the Shenzhou-14 rocket and spaceship was ready at the factory be on stanby to do rescue for possible dangerous accidents: we have rocket first. Same as the Shenzhou-13 spaceship, which currently in space, and the rocket that sent it into orbit were also stanby while Shenzhou-12 was on its mission. And then "Wentian" module have another 3 sleeping bay and a washing room: there have place for new Shenzhou's crew to live. Plus there is news that the third batch of 18 astronaut echelon has been selected and started training last year. So, yes, I think there will be a continously inhabited in space station.

Fun fact: Tianzhou-3 cargo ship take a 8k camera for Shenzhou-13 to make documentary. Because the files were so large, it was found that bringing the hard drives back from space by the astronauts themselves was much faster than a direct wireless signal transfer.

Edited March 4, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

CZ-2C rocket successfully launched Glaxy Space's six satellites in batch 02 and a 'space memorial' micro-nano-satellite "Xuan Ming Xing Yuan (暄铭星愿) 6U" Remote sensing cube satellite.

And the "space memorial satellite"

The yellow text is "The space memorial satellite has been made and is waiting to be loaded with souvenirs for launch".

(I don't totally understand why some people want to throw their own personal souvenirs into the orbit)

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Saw something cool about previously CZ-8 Y2 rocket launch:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1w341157Qa?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

I can't be able to back home in time for the launch of the two new space modules this year. But I think I can be there for the launch of the "Xuntian" Telescope at the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024.

Spoiler

I can stare on it all day long

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

Wu Weiren, Chief Designer of China's Lunar Exploration Project: The fourth phase of China's lunar exploration project has begun to be fully implemented.

Chang'e 6 will return samples primarily from high-value areas in the lunar polar regions, with the goal of bringing 1-2 kg of lunar soil samples back to Earth;

Chang'e 7 will focus on scientific exploration of the lunar polar regions, particularly the distribution of water/ice on the moon;

Chang'e 8 will work in tandem with Chang'e 7 to carry out experimental verification of lunar resouce explitation techonology and long-term scientific exploration, to make large-scope, full-scale and long-period observations of the moon. And to verify key technologies for the subsequent scientific research stations. Chang'e 6 and Chang'e 7 are expected to be launched around 2025.

He also mentioned that there will have Tianwen-2, 3 and 4 at future. In the 14th Five-year Plan period (2021-2025), CNSA will launch an asteroid probe. CNSA will carry out near-Earth asteroid sampling and main belt comet exploration, and conduct key technology research on Mars sample return and Jupiter system exploration. In addition, China will also thoroughly discuss the implementation plan of major projects such as the solar system edge exploration.

Hurry up CZ-9, can't have party withou you!

Edited March 9, 2022 by steve9728

[steve9728]

CNSA: Crews have been selected for the two manned missions (Shenzhou-14 and 15)  during the construction phase of the space station. The key technologies for the construction of the space station have been fully validated and the subsequent missions will continue to progress as planned.

(They didn’t published the list yet)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Question: the Chinese Female Astronaut.  Is she being treated in the media as 'just an astronaut' or some kind of special case 'look what Women can do' thing?