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Long March 5B arrives at launch site

11:15 am

The new colonial movement: China’s biggest rocket, the Long March 5B, has arrived at its launch site, where launch crews will do rehearsals using a prototype of that country’s core space station module, prior to an unmanned launch to test China’s new upgraded manned capsule.

The 5B is a variation of the Long March 5, which had its first successful launch (after two failures) in December.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

3 comments

  • geoffc
    February 6, 2020 at 12:49 pm

    So they are using the 5B for manned flights? Isn’t it a bit large for LEO missions?

  • Robert Zimmerman
    February 6, 2020 at 1:12 pm

    geoffc: Yup, good question, the same one I asked in this post last month. To quote:

    Apparently in upgrading its Shenzhou manned spacecraft China has made it 0.3 meters longer and about four tons heavier. In fact, this manned ferry for getting to and from its space station is as heavy as a standard module used on both Mir and ISS. I could be wrong, but if this is the case they will require the Long March 5 or 5B for every manned flight. Since this rocket is large and expensive, it will be difficult to use it for maintaining a frequent launch pace, thus limiting the number of manned missions.

    As I said, I could be wrong. Up until now I had assumed that a variant of the Long March 5 would be used to launch the station modules, and the smaller Long March 2F rocket used to ferry astronauts to it (as was done on all previous Chinese manned missions). This could still be the case.

    If not, however, China’s space engineers have either put a limit on what they can achieve by overbuilding that manned capsule, or their government has made a major commitment to put a lot of tonnage into orbit. If the latter China’s space program is going to be quite competitive indeed.

  • Jay
    February 6, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    Geoffc,
    China needs it for testing their lunar spacecraft they are developing. From the pictures and specs, its mass is 20 tonnes (https://www.space.com/china-new-spacecraft-crewed-moon-missions.html) compared to the 8 tonne Shenzhou. Kind of looks like the Soviet’s Zond spacecraft. The claimed LEO payload value for CZ-5B (Long March 5B) is about 25 tonnes so they will use that rocket for testing and will be using the Long March 9 for pushing this unnamed lunar spacecraft out to lunar orbit.

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