Tag: China

A Chinese SLS super rocket?

9:23 am

The competition heats up: According to a report in a Chinese newspaper today, China is developing preliminary designs for a new rocket that would be the most powerful ever built.

According to an earlier report by China News Service, Liang Xiaohong, deputy head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, disclosed that the Long March-9 is planned to have a maximum payload of 130 tons and its first launch will take place around 2028.

Liang urged the government to include the Long March-9’s development in its space agenda as soon as possible so that China’s rocket technologies will not lag behind those of other space powers.

Whether this rocket every gets built is highly doubtful. The article seems to mostly be both a public relations response to the U.S.’s test flight on Friday of Orion as well as an example of a government agency lobbying for a bigger budget. (This lobbying happens even in communist China.)

Nonetheless, we should not dismiss the possibility lightly. As competition causes the cost of building all rockets to drop, it will be more affordable to build bigger rockets. By the next decade building a heavy lift rocket might finally be affordable.

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Chinese spacecraft reaches L2

10:13 am

The service module for China’s test lunar probe, that circled the Moon before returning to Earth, has reached L2 as planned.

As of Friday, the service module had been flying for 28 days, and was 421,000 kilometers away from Earth and 63,000 km from the moon. All experiments are going well. The service module was separated from the return capsule of China’s test lunar orbiter, which returned to Earth on Nov. 1 after circling the moon in its eight-day mission launched on Oct. 24.

…After two orbital transfers, the service module re-entered the elliptical orbit with an apogee of 540,000 km and a perigee of 600 km. During the flight, the service module again performed orbital transfer actions twice, and flew along the pre-set Earth-moon transfer orbit. On Nov. 23, it reached the perilune and with the lunar gravity it was able to undertake the orbit maneuver to fly to the L2 point.

This is brilliant management. They not only test return-to-Earth capability, they practice flying a robot ship in deep space, doing complex orbital maneuvers. In addition, depending on the equipment on the service module, they get a cheap unmanned probe for observing the near lunar environment.

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China’s struggle to compete with SpaceX

8:41 am

This Aviation Week story provides a detailed update on China’s effort to build a new family of Long March rockets that are less expensive to operate and can effectively compete with SpaceX.

Two main take-aways from the article. First, the first flight of the Long March 7, a direct competitor with the Falcon 9, has been seriously delayed. Originally expected to fly in 2013, that first flight has apparently been pushed back to 2015.

Second, even with extensive cost savings, the Long March 7 will still cost a customer more than a Falcon 9, $70 million vs $61 million.

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The Earth/Moon double planet, as seen by China’s Chang’e 5 probe

10:00 am

Earth/Moon as seen by Chang'e 5

China’s Chang’e 5 probe has taken a spectacular image of the Moon and Earth as it whips around the Moon on its circumlunar test flight.

Though China has released little additional information about the status of the mission, this image demonstrates that the vehicle is functioning well, sending back data, and that they are controlling its operation precisely and exactly as planned. The spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth on November 1.

Meanwhile, China’s second lunar probe, Chang’e 2, now in solar orbit about 60 million miles from Earth, continues to operate four years after launch

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Third launch for China in a week

9:17 am

The competition heats up: China today launched its third spacecraft in a week with the launch Monday of a military satellite.

Monday’s mission was the third Chinese space launch in a week, coming after the Oct. 20 liftoff of the Chinese military’s Yaogan 22 reconnaissance satellite and the Oct. 23 launch of a demonstrator probe on a looping flight around the moon and back to Earth to verify technologies for use on a planned mission to retrieve and return lunar samples. Overall, the launch of Shijian 11-08 marked the ninth Chinese space launch of 2014.

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Chinese lunar mission launches

5:36 pm

The competition heats up: The Chinese have launched their next lunar mission, a fly-by around the Moon to test their return-to-Earth engineering in anticipation of a future sample return mission.

Chang’e 5-T1, one of the test models for Chang’e-5, was developed using a Chang’e 2 type spacecraft (acting like a service module) featuring the Chang’e-5 return capsule. This return capsule is very similar to the Shenzhou manned return technology, so it is assumed that it was developed using the Shenzhou as a baseline model. The service module will be used for trajectory corrections, power supply using two solar panels and batteries, along with telemetry and commands transmission to and from the control center.

Following launch, Chang’e 5-T1 will be injected into a lunar free-return orbit, loop behind the Moon once and return to Earth to test the high speed atmospheric reentry of a capsule returning from the translunar voyage at 11.2 km/s.

This launch marks the start of this nine day mission. Stay tuned for updates.

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China to launch two payloads to the Moon

9:37 am

The competition heats up: On Thursday China plans to send a capsule on a mission around the Moon and back to Earth to test its heat shield.

The rocket’s upper stage, which will also round the Moon but not return to Earth, will also carry a privately funded cubesat designed to study the radiation levels during the entire journey.

Twenty minutes after launch on October 23, (at 1:59 p.m. U.S. Eastern time), the Long March’s upper stage will separate from the test capsule, and both will continue on a trajectory that takes them around the moon. The capsule will return to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on October 31. In early discussions with the Chinese, LuxSpace was told that the upper stage [carrying the private cubesat] would re-enter the atmosphere as well, but it’s now expected to enter a wide, looping orbit around Earth. The main battery is only designed to last 10 days, although it may go longer.

Radio receivers on Earth will be able to tune in to 4M’s signal shortly after separation, and will be able to follow it as it rounds the moon, coming as close as 7,500 miles to the surface. The payload also includes a radiation sensor that will take measurements throughout the journey into Earth-moon space. Anyone with the proper equipment will be able to receive the compressed radiation data and decode it.

Though this private mission is definitely breaking new ground by sending a small payload to lunar space for very little money, the article is incorrect when it states that this is the first privately funded Moon mission. In 1997-1998 HGS 1, a Hughes commercial communications satellite that was placed in an incorrect orbit by a Russian rocket, was sent on a wide elliptical orbit to fly past the Moon twice and thus use this sling shot effect to get the satellite into a usable orbit.

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Yutu is slowly dying

4:00 pm

China’s lunar rover Yutu, unable to move since its first few weeks on the moon, is slowly dying.

The rover is currently in good condition and works normally, but its control problem persists, said Yu Dengyun, deputy chief designer of China’s lunar probe mission. “Yutu has gone through freezing lunar nights under abnormal status, and its functions are gradually degrading,” Yu told Xinhua at an exclusive interview. He said that the moon rover and the lander of the Chang’e-3 lunar mission have completed their tasks very well. The rover’s designed lifetime is just three months, but it has survived for over nine.

As China’s first planetary rover mission, the limited roving success of Yutu is well balanced by its ability to continue functioning on the lunar survey for so long. The engineering data obtained from this mission will serve Chinese engineers well as they plan future missions.

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India inks space deal with China

10:06 am

The competition heats up: India has signed a cooperative agreement with China to work together on several space projects.

Asked about the areas of focus, [Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan] said: “Right now, broadly speaking, it will be natural disasters and remote sensing, which are natural choices. But by March-April 2015, the joint working team would have prepared a roadmap, chalking out various options and opportunities for concentrated efforts in space exploration.”

This article is among a lot of articles from India this week about space and the upcoming orbital insertion of their Mars Orbiter Mangalyaan. As I’ve said repeatedly, this emerging prosperous and capitalist nation is space happy!

Also, when you click on the link make sure you scroll down to read the secondary sidebar piece at the bottom titled “After Mars, Kathakali beckons Isro chief.” There they describe the other culture interests of the head of India’s space agency, and how he plans to spend his time after he steps down in December. It will give you a flavor of India’s culture and how it differs from ours, even as it strives to emulate us.

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China to build a new canal in Central America

10:49 pm

The competition heats up: With approval from Nicaragua, China has inched closer to beginning construction of a new canal that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

A month ago, a Nicaraguan committee approved Chinese billionaire Wang Jing’s project to create The Nicaraguan Canal. With a planned capacity to accommodate ships with loaded displacement of 400,000 tons (notably bigger than The Panama Canal), the proposed 278-kilometer-long canal that will run across the Nicaragua isthmus would probably change the landscape of the world’s maritime trade.

“The project is the largest infrastructure project ever in the history of man in terms of engineering difficulty, investment scale, workload and its global impact,” Wang told reporters, adding that with regard the project’s financing, which is around $50 billion, Wang seems quite confident, “If you can deliver, you will find all the world’s money at your disposal.”

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Chinese anti-satellite test?

3:28 pm

The U.S. State department is claiming that China completed a “non-destructive” anti-satellite test last week.

The State department also demanded that China refrain from further such actions.

China in turn said that the test was for a a ballistic missile defense system. According to these Chinese reports, the test was of a land-based missile designed to intercept an incoming rocket, much like Israel’s Iron Dome and the U.S. SDI systems. Such a system, however, is in many ways indistinguishable from an anti-sat system. In fact, the U.S. military proved that by firing a missile that successfully destroyed an orbiting satellite several years ago.

In the case of last week’s Chinese test, the interceptor did not apparently impact anything but instead demonstrated its ability to hit a prearranged simulated point in space.

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Was Yutu stopped by rough ground?

8:39 am

One of the designers of the Chinese lunar rover Yutu said in a news interview today that the rocky nature of the Moon’s surface, far rougher than expected, was what caused it to stall.

The rover was tested in Beijing, Shanghai and the desert in northwestern China before its launch, but the terrain of the landing site proved to be much more rugged than expected, said Zhang Yuhua, deputy chief designer of the lunar probe system for the Chang’e-3 mission. “It is almost like a gravel field.”

Data from foreign researchers projected that there would be four stones, each above 20 cm, on average every 100 square meters, but the quantity and size of the stones that Yutu has encountered has far exceeded this expectation, Zhang said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua. “Experts’ initial judgement for the abnormality of Yutu was that the rover was ‘wounded’ by colliding with stones while moving,” she said. [emphasis mine]

The implication of the highlighted quote is that it isn’t their fault, it was the fault of those evil Americans and Russians who incorrectly estimated the roughness of the ground. This article also doesn’t fit the information released when Yutu first stalled, where they explained that their problem was partly an inability to retract equipment in preparation for lunar night. While this story could be true, it isn’t the whole story.

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China heads for the Moon and Mars.

8:43 am

The competition heats up: In several different news stories today China touted its future plans in space.

The landing test described in the first story above will also be the first test flight of China’s new heavy lift rocket, Long March 5.

That China is both politically and culturally serious about this effort can be seen by the nationalistic enthusiasm for this space effort that permeates these stories. They also can’t help comparing their plans to U.S. efforts.
» Read more

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As China’s Yutu lunar rover barely continues to survive, unable to move, its scientists prepare to publish their results.

8:57 am

As China’s Yutu lunar rover barely continues to survive, unable to move, its scientists prepare to publish their results.

But other systems and scientific instruments — a panoramic camera, infrared and X-ray spectrometers and a ground-penetrating radar — are operating normally, says Zheng: “The rover can still carry out measurements from the fixed location and send scientific data to the ground station.” …

Yutu’s penetrator radar has detected several layers underneath its path, says Long Xiao, a planetary scientist at China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. Under the surface soil, known as regolith, it found a layer of debris from a crater-forming impact and two layers of lava flows, made of basalt.

Though the rover lost its ability to rove within days of landing on the Moon, the mission is certainly an overall success for China. When they send their next rover to the Moon this first experience will serve them very well.

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China claimed today that its lunar rover Yutu is still alive on the Moon.

7:33 pm

China claimed today that its lunar rover Yutu is still alive on the Moon.

The rover is still able to send data back to Earth using the Chang’e 3 probe that delivered it, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing Li Bengzheng, deputy commander-in-chief of China’s lunar program. But the buggy’s wheels and the solar panel designed for thermal insulation during the frozen lunar nights no longer work, Li said. The craft’s functionality is progressively deteriorating “with each lunar night,” Li said.

What is significant here is that though the rover’s ability to rove failed much sooner than planned, its longevity now means that much of their engineering for future missions will work.

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Russia signs a preliminary space exploration agreement with China.

9:07 am

The competition heats up: Russia signs a preliminary space exploration agreement with China.

Meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister Wang Yang, in Beijing on Monday, [Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri] Rogozin announced on Twitter that he had signed “a protocol on establishing a control group for the implementation of eight strategic projects.” In a later Facebook post, he said “cooperation in space and in the market for space navigation” were among the projects.

Rogozin and Wang agreed to hold a meeting between the heads of their respective agencies “in the near future,” so that Beijing and Moscow could sow the seeds of a potential space partnership.

Federal Space Agency chief Oleg Ostapanko wants to allow “Chinese colleagues participate in some of the most interesting projects that can replace the ISS,” Rogozin said, adding that they would also discuss “projects such as cooperation in the field of rocket engine development,” and cooperation in the growing market of space applications services — which primarily applies to the development of the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system and Russia’s Glonass navigation system, both rivals to the U.S.’ GPS.

The article does not give much information about this agreement, but does spend a lot of time discounting it, saying that it really is only a bluff to keep the U.S. from imposing more sanctions against Russia’s profitable commercial space efforts.

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China’s president calls for the increased military use of that country’s space assets.

8:45 am

China’s president calls for the increased military use of that country’s space assets.

The article itself is not very informative, other than noting these comments. In fact, it has some errors that suggest the writer knows very little about China’s space effort, both civilian or military.

Nonetheless, China’s president did make this statement, which tells us that it is definitely Chinese policy. Not good.

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China’s new spaceport and the giant rocket it is being built for.

9:15 am

The competition heats up: China’s new spaceport and the giant rocket it is being built for.

The combination of the planned rocket, called the Long March 5 — and its derivatives — matched with the Wenchang Launch Center, China’s new sprawling spaceport, underscores the country’s shifting space gears. It enables China’s space station ambitions, while also boosting the nation’s plans for interplanetary exploration, as well as accomplishing human treks to the moon.

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China’s Yutu rover is still functioning but cannot move.

9:12 am

China’s Yutu rover is still functioning but cannot move.

Last week Yutu and its companion spacecraft, the Chang’e 3 Moon lander, awoke from a period of dormancy after the frigid, two-week lunar night — the third awakening since landing on 14 December, Chinese scientists said this week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The probes continue to gather data and send it back to Earth.

But Yutu may never move more than the 100–110 metres it has already travelled from its landing site — in the Mare Imbrium. Mission officials had hoped that Yutu would travel to the rim of a nearby crater and explore it, but a mechanical failure in Yutu’s drive system has stilled the rover since late January.

I wish they would get their story straight. This article suggests that the problem wasn’t in the circuit that controls the storage of equipment during the long lunar night, as reported previously, but in the system that actually moves the rover.

It also appears from the story above that scientists were disappointed by the amount of information released at the Texas conference.

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China finally reveals Yutu’s problem: the failure of a control circuit prevents it from storing its solar panels during lunar night.

8:02 am

China finally reveals Yutu’s problem: the failure of a control circuit prevents it from storing its solar panels during lunar night.

A functioning control circuit is required to lower the rovers mast and protect the delicate components and instruments mounted on the mast from directly suffering from the extremely harsh cold of the Moon’s recurring night time periods. “Normal dormancy needs Yutu to fold its mast and solar panels,” said Ye. The high gain communications antenna and the imaging cameras are [also] attached to the mast. They must be folded down into a warmed electronics box to shield them from the damaging effects of the Moon’s nightfall when temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.

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