China to test unmanned space freighter in April
China has announced that the first test flight of its unmanned Tianzhou-1 cargo freighter will take place in April.
The spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with the their test space station module, Tiangong-2, where it will then test its ability to refuel the space station.
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China has announced that the first test flight of its unmanned Tianzhou-1 cargo freighter will take place in April.
The spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with the their test space station module, Tiangong-2, where it will then test its ability to refuel the space station.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
As I recall , NASA was never able to pull off a successful fuel x-fer in micro gravity. Apparently , it is far more difficult to pump explosive fuel without gravity. As risk adverse as NASA has become since the shuttle tragedies, such a experiment probably had them lads dropping a brick in their pants. Hell, the one time they tried that tether experiment , it damned near destroyed the shuttle.
Orion314: Your memory is incorrect. NASA did tests with the shuttle and was successful with them. They have just never had the facilities in orbit that required this skill. The Russians have been doing it for decades, first on their Salyut stations, then on Mir, and now on ISS.
I worked payload integration for the two TSS (tethered satellite) fights on the space shuttle. Granted we had problems enough on both flights, I did miss the part about damned near destroying the shuttle
Seems to me it would be much easier to transfer the fluids in a container, rather than trying to pump them. Exchanging filled tanks would remove many of the safety concerns as well.
Using containers seems a lot more practical , as to the refuel , I had thought the goal was to refuel a secondary stage (centaur?) with a payload to a Jupiter type orbit..at any rate, check the the youtube footage of the shuttle /tether experiment , worth a look…
@David M. Cook When the engine fires, the fuel has to be pumped from the container to the engine anyway. What would simplify things would be to have a space tug with its own fuel AND engine dock with the target satellite and do the propulsive job. The otherwise unservicable James Webb Space Telescope is built with such a docking option to prolong its life or maybe even rescue it if it doesn’t reach the right orbit. A big bonus with a separate tug is that one wouldn’t need to care about matching with the fuel of the target satellite.
It is commonly proposed, and I think recently even by a member of the NASA transition team, that fuel produced at the Lunar poles could be used to refuel satellites. But that fails because satellites almost only use hypergolic fuels while the fuel potentially available on the Moon is oxygen and hydrogen. But it could be used to refuel a shuttling space tug. Although xenon for Solar electric propulsion is a strong competitor for station keeping and there’s no xenon on the Moon. And I think that even a specially built space tug needs helium for tank pressurization, and there’s no helium on the Moon.
Refueling in space has its niche in a future of very big space flight, the ISS being one specific mission big enough to motivate it, but it isn’t generally very helpful concept right now.