Tag: China

Yutu-2 scientists find soil “cloddy” during its journey

10:46 am

Chinese scientists today published a paper describing results from Yutu-2’s two year journey on the far side of the Moon, with the most interesting discovery being that the soil is “cloddy” there.

They found that the bearing property of the regolith is similar to that of dry sand and sandy loam on Earth, stronger than the typical lunar soil of Apollo missions.

But they estimated, based on the cloddy soil observed in Yutu-2’s wheels, that the soil there is stickier than the landing site of its predecessor Chang’e-3 which soft-landed on the moon’s Bay of Rainbows in Dec. 2013, according to the study.

The researchers attributed the increased soil cohesion to the higher percentage of agglutinates in the regolith, which make the soil particles more likely to hold together when ground by the wheels.

Since the blocky soil has adhered onto the rover’s wheel lugs instead of its meshed surface, they suggested that the lug’s surface could be coated with a special anti-adhesion material in future missions to improve the machine’s ability of traction.

The rover also traveled by the number of small and relatively fresh secondary craters.

Yutu-2 continues to operate. It is at present in hibernation during the lunar night, and will resume operations when the Sun comes up in about a week or so.

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Chinese pseudo-company preparing first launch of methane-fueled rocket

9:07 am

The Chinese pseudo-private company, Landspace, is apparently prepping its new launchpad and Zhuque-2 rocket for launch in one of China’s interior spaceports.

Satellite imagery and deleted social media postings indicate that work is progressing on a new complex for facilitating methane-liquid oxygen launch vehicles at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Timelapse and high resolution satellite imagery show the development near the national Jiuquan center in the Gobi Desert and suggest the presence of a Zhuque-2 test article. A recent, now-deleted article indicates a new flame trench has been completed at Jiuquan.

The article at the link also cites statements by the company’s CEO in November, where he claimed they would launch in the first quarter of ’22. If successful, it would be the first orbital launch of a methane-fueled rocket, beating out both SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn.

The article also says that the company is working on making the first stage reusable, which makes sense in that it will launch from inside China and that first stage if expendable will crash uncontrolled on Chinese territory. A second Chinese pseudo-company, iSpace, also claims it will begin hop tests of its own reusable rocket later this year.

For new readers: I call these companies pseudo because they really are not independent entities, as private companies are in the west. China’s government since 2014 has allowed private investors to create these companies and for the companies to compete against each other for government business, but none of them do anything without the full supervision of the Chinese government. Most have completed their first launches using solid rockets, technology almost always reserved for military use. None could have done so without that government permission and control.

The strategy here of China’s government is nonetheless smart, as the policy is creating competition and thus some innovation within its aerospace industry. The top-down control however will likely prevent these companies from doing anything truly different. Instead, they are apparently latching onto the new ideas, such as methane-fueled rockets and vertically landing first stages, that they have seen demonstrated by the truly independent private companies in the west.

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China launches military test satellite

8:49 am

The new colonial movement: China yesterday completed its first launch in 2022, using its Long March 2D rocket to launch a military test satellite into orbit.

No word on where the first stage crashed in the interior of China, or whether it used parachutes or grid fins to control its landing.

The 2022 launch race:

2 SpaceX
1 Virgin Orbit
1 China

These numbers should change later today, as SpaceX has a Falcon 9 Starlink launch scheduled. UPDATE: The SpaceX Starlink launch has been delayed one day to tomorrow.

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Data from China’s Chang’e-5 lander detects very tiny amounts of water in lunar soil

9:29 am

The uncertainty of science: In a paper published yesterday, Chinese scientists revealed that data from an instrument on the Chang’e-5 lunar lander has detected evidence of very tiny amounts of water in lunar soil, amounts that confirm past data showing the Moon is very dry.

From China’s state-run press:

The study published on Saturday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances revealed that the lunar soil at the landing site contains less than 120 ppm water or 120g water per ton, and a light, vesicular rock carries 180 ppm, which are much drier than that on Earth. … The additional 60 ppm water in the rock may originate from the lunar interior, according to the researchers. [emphasis mine]

It is believed that most of this water is the result of hydrogen in the solar wind.

The paper can be found here.

Before we begin dancing in joy that the Moon is wet, reread the highlighted words. This data instead simply confirms past data that the Moon is very dry. In the paper itself, it is made very clear that this high water content, small as it is, was only detected in a single rock, with all of the surrounding terrain much much drier. From the paper:

The water contents are less than 30 ppm in most measured regolith spots except for [areas] D12 and D17, which may be due to the disturbance of the top layer of the more space-weathered/solar wind–implanted regolith by the lander exhaust and the subsequent sampling process. The unsampled areas of D12 and D17 may have been shielded by [a rock] from the lander exhaust and thus retain the top space-weathered layer that contains higher water content. We predict that higher water content may be found in surface regolith than that from the subsurface of the returned borehole samples if the original stratigraphy is preserved. The estimated water contents of the regolith in the landing area are in agreement with those measured in the Apollo regolith samples and the orbital observations.

In other words, the higher water content, still very dry, appears to only exist on the surface, which is why they suspect it is produced by the solar wind and is also very temporary.

Moreover, there are many uncertainties in this result. The detection might not even be water, but hydroxyl molecules.

What this study suggests is that the patches of suspected water that some orbiters think they have identified in low latitudes on the Moon may simply be these surface molecules left by the solar wind, and that if there is usable water on the Moon, it will only be found in those permanently shadowed craters at the poles, if there.

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Yutu-2 approaches boulder, has now traveled more than 1,000 meters

12:31 pm

Yutu-2's square boulder
Click for original image.

The Chinese state-run press has released some more images from its rover Yutu-2, including a new image of the square-shaped lunar rock that was first identified a month ago. This new image is to the right, cropped and reduced to post here.

In the original image, the rock appeared very square as it was on the horizon and silhouetted by the black sky. As is usual in our emotion- and movie-run society, many began to push wild theories about the rock, proposing it was anything from an alien spacecraft to the monolith from the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The picture confirms what any thoughtful person would have concluded, that it was simply a rock. The available image does not provide a scale, so I cannot tell you whether this is a large boulder, or a small piece of gravel. However, a wider image taken by Yutu-2 shows that the rock is on the edge of a small crater, which suggests the boulder is probably somewhere between three to ten feet across. The rover has completed only about half of its 260-foot journey to it, and won’t reach it until its next lunar day of operations in February.

The same report also revealed that the rover has now traveled just over 1,000 meters on the far side of the Moon, or about 3,280 feet, since it began operations in early 2019.

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China tests space station robot arm

9:49 am

The new colonial movement: The Chinese state-run press yesterday reported that it has successfully used the robot arm on its Tiangong space station to move a Tianzhou freighter from one point to another.

After being unlocked and separated from the space station core module Tianhe, Tianzhou-2 was moved into a predetermined position by the robotic arm. The arm then reversed the maneuvers to bring the spacecraft back to its original position. Tianzhou-2 re-docked with the core module and completed locking.

The test preliminarily verified the feasibility of using the mechanical arm to conduct a space station module transfer, confirmed the effectiveness of relevant technologies, and laid a foundation for the subsequent in-orbit assembly and construction of the country’s space station, said the CMSA [Chinese Manned Space Agency].

The news report did not indicate whether this operation was run from ground control, or by the astronauts on board Tiangong. Either way, it apparently clears the way for the arrival of two more large modules, planned for launch later this year, suggesting that the arm will be used in some manner to position those modules prior to docking.

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China takes the global lead in fusion research

9:47 am

In setting new records of temperature and running time in its own tokamak fusion experiment, China now leads the U.S. in the field of developing the technology for generating practical fusion energy.

[The U.S.] ITER’s target temperature is 150 million °C (270 million °F). China’s EAST facility, which is a key contributor to the ITER project, has hit this mark already, reaching 160 million °C (288 million °F) for 20 seconds, and holding 120 million °C (216 million °F) for 101 seconds in separate experiments announced last May.

The latest experiment tested the Chinese tokamak’s capability to endure extreme temperatures over longer periods, sustaining a temperature 2.6 times hotter than the Sun’s core for some 1,056 seconds, or 17 minutes and 36 seconds. Nobody’s ever sustained a high-temperature plasma for 1,000 seconds before, so this is an important milestone.

The development of this capability continues China’s effort to lead the world in all areas of research, led I think by the many high government officials in positions of great power after cutting their teeth as managers for China’s space effort. These individuals understand how to build big technology projects at the cutting edge of science, and are likely pushing for more such research in all fields, such as the experiments in fusion energy above.

As big government projects, however, the long term future of such work is very risky. Government projects like this might start out great, which describes China’s status today, but they always end up corrupt and hidebound, as seen in the Soviet Union and at NASA in the U.S.

Nonetheless, this success highlights China’s aggressive effort to lead the world in all things. We would be foolish to ignore this.

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A review of China’s space program

8:42 am

Link here. The article covers China’s achievements in ’21, then reviews the status of its rocket development program. The key quote to me however was this, describing the upcoming plans for the assembly of China’s space station:

In 2022, China is expected to launch two more crew rotations to the Tiangong station using its Shenzhou spacecraft. The first, Shenzhou 14, is expected in May, while the second one will launch in November. Both missions will launch aboard Chang Zheng [Long March] 2F/G rockets. Two more modules for the space station are also planned to launch in the course of the year.

These new modules are the laboratory cabin modules (LCMs). The first is named Wentian, meaning Quest for the Heavens, while the second is Mengtian, or Dreaming of the Heavens. Both will launch on Chang Zheng 5B rockets, with Wentian currently scheduled to lift off in May or June, with Mengtian planned to launch in August or September.

This means that — assuming China has not reworked the design of its Long March 5B rocket — a large out-of-control core stage will be crashing to Earth in the the spring and late summer.

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China completes two launches to make 2021 the most active year in rocketry ever

9:16 am

China yesterday completed two different launches from two different spaceports using two different rockets.

First it used its Long March 2D rocket to launch an Earth observation satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China.

Then, a few hours later, a Long March 3B rocket launched a classified military satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.

Both launches dropped first stage boosters in the interior of China. No word on whether either used parachutes or grid fins to better control the stages so that they avoid habitable areas.

These two launches bring China’s total number of successful launches in 2021 to 52, a record for that country and the most any single country has achieved since Russia successfully launched 54 times in 1992 as its high launch rate slowly shut down following the fall of the Soviet Union.

The two launches also bring the total number of successful launches in 2021 to 134, the most in any single year in the entire history of space exploration. The last time global launches reached such numbers was in the 1970s and 1980s, numbers that were produced mostly by the launch of a lot of short term low orbit surveillance satellites by the Soviets, using technology that the U.S. had abandoned in the 1960s as inefficient. It took the collapse of the communist state for Russia to finally cease such launches itself.

Now the high number of launches is increasingly being fueled by commercial competition and profits, though China’s record this year is partly due to the same top down communist set-up similar to the Soviet Union. Even so, the number of competing private rocket companies worldwide is on the rise, and in most places (even China in a few cases), it is those companies that are providing the launch services to the government. Profit and private ownership are the watchwords, and so there is aggressive competition that is lowering the launch cost.

I will have more to say about this in my annual report, which I will publish on Monday, January 3rd.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

52 China
31 SpaceX
23 Russia
7 Europe (Arianespace)

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China attacks SpaceX, claiming Starlink satellites threaten its space station

9:16 am

China earlier this month submitted a complaint against SpaceX to the UN, claiming that the company’s Starlink satellites have twice forced it to adjust the orbit of its space station to avoid a collusion.

The note said the incidents “constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station”.

“The U.S. … ignores its obligations under international treaties, posing a serious threat to the lives and safety of astronauts,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a routine briefing on Tuesday.

The story became news today because there was suddenly a flurry of outrage against SpaceX on Chinese social media, responding to Lijian’s statement, with much of it very likely astroturf posts prompted by the Chinese government itself.

This announcement likely signals that China is getting ready to launch the next module to that station. During that launch the large core stage of the Long March 5B rocket will reach orbit, but only for a few days. It will then crash uncontrolled somewhere on Earth. The Chinese government knows it is going to get a lot of bad press because of this fact, and is likely making this complaint to try to excuse its own bad actions.

The two issues however are not the same. Satellite orbits are very predictable, and any maneuvers required by China to avoid Starlink satellites were very routine. Moreover, if necessary SpaceX can adjust its own satellite orbits to avoid a collusion.

The crash of the Long March 5B core stage however is due entirely to a bad design that does not allow for any controlled maneuvers. Once the stage’s engines shut down after delivering the station module into orbit, they cannot be restarted, as designed. The stage must fall to Earth in an unpredictable manner, threatening every spot it flies over during that orbital decay.

At this time the actual launch date for that Long March 5B launch, carrying the next station module, has not been announced. The astronauts on the station just completed their second spacewalk, doing work to prepare for the arrival of the next module. Its arrival can’t be too far in the future, and this complaint by China today suggests it will be sooner rather than later. When it happens China will face a flurry of justified criticism, and the Xi government likely plans to use this UN complaint then to deflect that criticism.

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China’s Long March 4C rocket launches Earth observation satellite

8:16 am

China today completed its 50th launch in 2021, successfully launching an Earth observation satellite into orbit using its Long March 4C rocket.

It also launched a cubesat built by students.

Not only does 50 launches smash its previous yearly launch record, set last year at 35, but it exceeds by 20% the 40 launches China had predicted at the start of the year it would complete in 2021.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

50 China
31 SpaceX
22 Russia
7 Europe (Arianespace)

China leads the U.S. 50 to 48 in the national rankings. This was the 131st launch in 2021, the second highest total in a single year since the launch of Sputnik in 1957.

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China launches two military satellites with its Long March 7A

8:56 am

China today successfully launched two military satellites from its coastal Wenchang spaceport, using its new Long March 7A rocket.

The Long March 7 family of rockets will eventually replace the Long March 2 and 3 families. It can launch from the coast, thus eliminating the need to drop boosters in China’s interior. It has greater capacity. It also uses kerosene and oxygen, not hypergolic fuels that ignite on contact and are very toxic.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

49 China
31 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

As there no more American launches planned this year, with this launch China wins the 2021 launch race, moving ahead of the U.S. 49 to 48.

This was the 129th launch in 2021. As there are three launches still scheduled — a Russian Angara test launch, a Ariane 5 launch placing Webb in orbit, and a Russian OneWeb launch — the year is likely end up tying or beating 1975 as the most active year in rocketry ever. The Chinese could also launch, as it has in the past done a lot of launches in December.

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China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket fails during launch

8:33 am

China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket experienced its second launch failure on December 14th, though few details about what went wrong have been released.

The Kuaizhou-1A rocket is built by one of China’s pseudo-private companies, Expace.

Expace had been encouraged by three successful Kuaizhou-1A launches across September, October and November, which followed the Kuaizhou-1A being grounded for one year as a result of a failure in September 2020.

Since the rocket’s first three stages use solid rocket motors, it must have been derived from military missile technology. Thus, the company is not private, even if it has obtained Chinese private investment capital, but closely supervised by the Chinese government and its military.

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China launches second communications satellite for its manned space station missions

8:39 am

The new colonial movement: China today launched the second Tianlian communications satellite for its manned space station missions, using its Long March 3B rocket.

No word on whether the rocket’s first stage used parachutes or grid fins to control its crash landing in the interior of China.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

48 China
28 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China now leads the U.S. 48 to 45 in the national rankings. This launch was the 124th in 2021, making the sixth most active year in rocketry since Sputnik in 1957.

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China launches two satellites with Long March 4B

8:08 am

China today launched two satellites thought to be for military reconnaissance, using its Long March 4B rocket.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

47 China
27 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China now leads the U.S. 47 to 45 in the national rankings. There have now been 122 successful launches in 2021, making it the seventh most active year in the history of space exploratoin.

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ULA and China complete launches

9:14 am

Two launches were successfully completed in the past twelve hours.

First ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket successfully launched two Space Force military satellites and a NASA ultraviolet telescope into orbit on a launch that had been repeatedly delayed since February.

Next, one of China’s pseudo-private companies, Galactic Energy, completed its second launch of its Ceres-1 rocket, putting five smallsats into orbit. As the Ceres-1 rocket uses solid rocket motors, its initial development was for the military, and thus everything Galactic Energy does is carefully supervised by that Chinese military.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA

China now leads the U.S. 46 to 43 in the national rankings. The 118 total launches this year is now the most since 1985. And this number is only temporary, with two more launches scheduled in the next 24 hours.

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Yutu-2 continues its travels on Moon’s far side

9:06 am

The square boulder being targeted by Yutu-2

An update on the Chinese lunar rover Yutu-2 has revealed that its science team has now decided to head towards a square boulder that the rover had recently spotted on the nearby horizon.

The photo from Yutu-2 to the right shows that boulder. The original update was at this Chinese-language website.

The boulder is presently about 260 feet away, which at pace Yutu-2 travels, about 100 feet per lunar day, will take about two to three lunar days to get there.

Yutu-2 has been traversing the floor of 115-mile-wide Von Kármán crater since January, 2019, a total of 36 lunar days, each about 14 Earth days long. The rover goes into hibernation during the lunar night, is then awakened each lunar morning to operate for about two-thirds of that lunar day, during which it travels about 100 feet, and is then returned to hibernation with the setting of the sun.

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Mars Express successfully relays data from Zhurong to Earth

10:21 am

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter has successfully been used to relay data from China’s Zhurong Mars rover to Earth and then to China.

In November, ESA’s Mars Express and CNSA’s Zhurong teams carried out a series of experimental communication tests in which Mars Express used this ‘in the blind’ mode to listen for signals sent to it by the Zhurong Rover.

The experiments culminated in a successful test on 20 November. “Mars Express successfully received the signals sent by the rover, and our colleagues in the Zhurong team confirmed that all the data arrived on Earth in very good quality.” says ESA’s Gerhard Billig.

Apparently, normal communications would first involve “handshake” communications between the two, but that requires communications frequencies Zhurong does not use. Mars Express instead had to grab the data on the blind. The test was a success, which means the ESA will likely act as another communications relay for Zhurong, in addition to China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter, as the rover’s mission on Mars continues.

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China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches classified government satellite

9:40 am

Late yesterday China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket successfully launched classified government satellite into orbit.

The Kuaizhou rocket is supposedly operated by the pseudo private company Expace, but nothing it does happens without the approval of the Chinese government.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

44 China
26 SpaceX
20 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China now leads the U.S. 44 to 41 in the national rankings.

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China launches another Earth observation satellite

10:21 am

China’s high pace of launches in 2021 continued yesterday with another launch, this time placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit using its Long March 4C rocket.

This was China’s 43rd successful launch in ’21, three more than it had predicted it would achieve at the start of the year and the most any single nation has accomplished since the Russians completed 49 in 1994.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

43 China
25 SpaceX
18 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China now leads the U.S. 43 to 40 in the national rankings.

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China’s Long March 4B rocket launches Earth observation satellite

7:24 am

China early today successfully placed an Earth observation satellite in orbit, using its Long March 4B rocket.

This was China’s 42nd successful launch in 2021, which is two launches more than it had projected it would fly at the start of the years.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

42 China
25 SpaceX
18 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China now leads the U.S. 42 to 40 in the national rankings.

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Russia confirms and defends anti-satellite test

1:33 pm

Russia today confirmed that it had done the anti-satellite missile test earlier this week that destroyed one of its defunct satellites and produced a cloud of space junk.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence also issued a Russian-language statement defending the test. The minister-general of the army, Sergei Shoigu, said that the test was successful and that “the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities,” according to a machine-generated translation to English.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that the test created a cloud of space debris made up of over 15,000 objects, calling it a threat to astronauts and cosmonauts, and space activities of all countries. The debris could pose a threat for years to come, experts have said. The space station’s crew had to shelter in their return ships on Monday when the debris cloud was first detected.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos wrote on Twitter Monday that the space debris cloud “has moved away from the ISS orbit”, which is roughly 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. The space debris tracker LeoLabs estimates the debris cloud is at 273 to 323 miles (440 to 520 km) in altitude. However, “the station is in the green zone,” Roscosmos added.

The Russian claim that the debris at present poses no threat to ISS could very well be true. The trouble is that it appeared to have posed a threat initially, and will likely be a problem in the future. As a signatory of the Outer Space Treaty, Russia was required to avoid such a situation, and chose not to.

The article at the link notes similar tests by China (2007), the U.S. (2008), and India (2019). Of all these anti-satellite tests, only the U.S. targeted a satellite in an orbit so low that the debris posed no threat to operating satellites or manned spacecraft, and was also quickly pulled Earthward to burn up in the atmosphere. India chose a higher satellite whose debris posed less threat, but took longer to burn up and was initially of some concern.

China and Russia could have done the same thing. They did not, and their irresponsibility has badly worsened a problem that already was considered a serious concern.

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Russian anti-sat test creates 1500 more pieces of space junk

3:40 pm

In what appears to be a test of Russia’s anti-satellite system dubbed Nudol, a defunct Russia satellite has been blasted into approximately 1,500 pieces by a missile launched from Russia.

Under normal circumstances, Kosmos 1408 would not have approached the International Space Station closely enough to pose a threat, however following the breakup, thousands of individual pieces of debris will have scattered into their own orbits. At least 1,500 pieces of debris from the satellite have already been identified by the United States Space Command. However, many smaller objects will have been generated, which will take much longer to identify. With high relative velocities, even a tiny fragment can cause significant damage should it collide with another spacecraft.

Owing to concerns about the debris cloud, the crew aboard the ISS were instructed to close hatches between the space station’s modules and take shelter aboard the Dragon and Soyuz capsules docked to the station.

According to the story at the link, ISS will cut through the expected debris cloud every orbit.

It is amazing that Russia would perform such a test on a satellite with an orbit that close to ISS’s, especially since there are many pieces of abandoned space junk in lower orbits so that their debris clouds would pose little problem, especially because their orbits would decay quickly.

This test is comparable to the Chinese anti-sat test in 2007, which caused a larger debris cloud that still poses a threat to ISS and other working satellites.

According to the Outer Space Treaty, a nation must control the objects it puts in space so that they pose no risk to others. Both the Russian and Chinese anti-sat tests prove these nations have no respect for the treaties they sign.

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Zhurong’s continuing travels on Mars

10:26 am

Zhurong overview map
Click for original map.

This past week the Chinese press released a new but limited update on the status of both its Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 and its Mars rover Zhurong.

The map to the right uses as its background a high resolution picture from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. I have superimposed Zhurong’s route in green. You can get an idea of how far the rover has traveled since resuming communications with Earth in late October by comparing this map with the one I posted then. After stopping at a small sand dune (the crescent-shaped white features), it curved around to head to the southeast towards a rough area and a trough that is thought to be filled with sediment.

Meanwhile, the orbiter has shifted its orbit, changing from one dedicated mainly as providing a communications relay between Zhurong and Earth to one that now allows it to begin a two-year photographic survey of Mars.

To supplement the resulting gaps in communications for Zhurong, China and the European Space Agency (ESA) have made their first test using ESA’s Mars Express satellite as a relay satellite. Both hope to know soon whether it worked.

In either case, Zhurong’s travels will likely be slowed somewhat due to the reduction in communications access.

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China building floating sea platform for rocket launches

9:57 am

The new colonial movement: According to its social media channel, a Chinese pseudo-company is building a new floating sea platform to be used for both rocket launches of all kinds as well as first stage landings.

The 533 feet (162.5 meters) long, 131 feet (40 meters) wide “New-type rocket launching vessel” is being constructed for use with the new China Oriental Spaceport at Haiyang, Shandong province on the Eastern coast.

The new ship is expected to enter service in 2022. It will feature integrated launch support equipment and be capable of facilitating launches of the Long March 11, larger commercial “Smart Dragon” rockets and, in the future, liquid propellant rockets, according to the social media channel for the spaceport.

The vessel could also in the future be used for the recovery of first stages, possibly in the same way as SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ships provide a landing platform for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket first stages.

Long March 11 uses solid rocket motors and is designed for quick launch from a simple launchpad, so this platform would work easily with it. Changing that platform to handle liquid fueled rockets however is not trivial, and once done the platform would not necessarily be a good place to land first stages, considering the presence very nearby of fuel tanks and fuel lines.

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Scientists: Asteroid in an orbit entwined with the Earth might be Moon rock

11:45 am

Data obtained by scientists using ground-based telescopes now suggests that the small asteroid Kamo`oalewa, which has an orbit that makes it a quasi-Moon of the Earth, might have originally come from the Moon.

From their paper’s abstract:

We find that (469219) Kamoʻoalewa rotates with a period of 28.3 (+1.8/−1.3) minutes and displays a reddened reflectance spectrum from 0.4–2.2 microns. This spectrum is indicative of a silicate-based composition, but with reddening beyond what is typically seen amongst asteroids in the inner solar system. We compare the spectrum to those of several material analogs and conclude that the best match is with lunar-like silicates. This interpretation implies extensive space weathering and raises the prospect that Kamo’oalewa could comprise lunar material.

Kam’oalewa — which is only about 150 feet across — is one of five such quasi-Earth-moons. All orbit the Sun in orbits that are similar to the Earth’s and are such that the asteroids periodically loop around our planet each year.

This data will be useful to the Chinese, who are planning a mission to Kamo-oalewa in ’24 to grab samples.

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ISS to maneuver around space junk leftover from Chinese anti-satellite test

8:41 am

Russian engineers will today fire engines on a Progress freighter docked to ISS to guarantee that a piece of debris left over from a 2007 Chinese military anti-satellite test does not hit the station.

The object the space station will dodge is called 35114 in NASA’s catalog of space objects, and is also identified at 1999-025DKS, a piece of debris from a Chinese anti-satellite weapons test in 2007. Originally part of a Chinese weather satellite, the debris resulted from an in-orbit missile test performed by China. As part of that test, a kinetic-energy, suborbital missile was fired at a defunct Chinese weather satellite called Fengyun-1C (which stopped working in 2002), obliterating it into thousands of pieces.

The destroyed satellite was originally in a much higher orbit, but atmospheric drag has pulled the debris closer to Earth over the years and ultimately into the flight path of the space station. The two objects’ closest approach is estimated to occur on Nov. 12, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at Harvard who tracks and catalogs objects in space. McDowell tweeted on Tuesday that his calculations show that this will be the 29th space station debris avoidance maneuver, and the third related to the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test.

The maneuver will take place prior to the arrival of Endurance, carrying four astronauts.

While the anti-sat test initially produced about 3,500 pieces of debris, that number has dropped in the past fourteen years to about 2,700 pieces as the orbits of these objects slowly decay. The test was also another example of China’s willingness to break the Outer Space Treaty. As a signatory China is required to control every object it puts into orbit in order to prevent collisions. Instead, it performed a military test that created debris in the thousands, in orbits that threaten ISS.

We shall get another demonstration of China’s contempt for treaties in the next few months, when it launches two more large modules to its space station and the large core stage of the rocket comes crashing down somewhere on Earth, out of control.

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Crew on China’s space station complete first spacewalk

9:17 am

The crew on China’s Tianhe space station have successfully completed their first spacewalk, with two astronauts spending 6.5 hours on the exterior of the station, testing their new spacesuits, the station’s robot arm, and the overall equipment used during such outside activities.

Zhai Zhigang was doing his second spacewalk, the first in thirteen years. Wang Yaping was doing her first, which made her the first Chinese woman to walk in space. This was her second space mission, the first in 2013 when she was the second Chinese woman fly in space.

The third crew member, Ye Guangfu, stayed on aboard the station to coordinate activities with the crew outside.

The crew is expected to do one to two more spacewalks during the rest of their six month mission. During that time two more large modules will be launched to the station.

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China begins in-orbit test of what it claims is a “space debris mitigation” satellite

9:43 am

The Space Force has now detected a second object flying next to a recently launched Chinese satellite that China claims will do an in-orbit test of a “space debris mitigation” system.

On Nov. 3 U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) catalogued a new object alongside Shijian-21 with the international designator 2021-094C. The object is noted as a rocket body and more precisely an apogee kick motor (AKM), used in some launches for a satellite to circularize and lower the inclination of its transfer orbit and enter geostationary orbit.

Apogee kick motors usually perform a final maneuver after satellite separation so as to not pose a threat to active satellites through risk of collision. However both Shijian-21 and the SJ-21 AKM are side by side in geostationary orbit.

The close proximity of the two objects strongly suggests Chinese engineers plan to use the satellite in some manner to capture the AKM in order to de-orbit it.

While China is likely testing methods for capturing and removing space debris, using this AKM, it could also be testing military technologies, such the ability to snatch working satellites it does not own from orbit. The lack of transparency can only make everyone suspicious.

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