China today successfully launched three military reconnaissance satellites using its Long March 4C rocket.
No word on whether the rocket’s first stage landed on any villages.
The 2021 launch race:
5 SpaceX
4 China
2 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
The U.S. still leads China 8 to 4 in the national rankings.
With the imminent landing on Mars of both the American rover Perseverance only days away on February 18th followed by China’s rover in April, I think it time for a new rover update, not only providing my readers a review of the new landing sites but a look at the most recent travels of Curiosity on Mars and Yutu-2 on the Moon.
Click for full resolution image.
The panorama above, made from four images taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on February 12, 2021 (found here, here, here, and here), looks south to the base of Mount Sharp, now only a short distance away. The yellow lines on the overview map to the right show the area this panorama covers. The white line indicates Curiosity’s previous travels. The dotted red line in both images shows Curiosity’s planned route.
The two white dots on the overview map are the locations of the two recurring slope lineae along Curiosity’s route, with the plan to get reasonable close to the first and spend some time there studying it. These lineae are one of Mars’ most intriguing phenomenon, seasonal dark streaks that appear on slopes in the spring and fade by the fall. There are several theories attempting to explain their formation, most proposing the seepage of a brine from below ground, but none has been accepted yet with any enthusiasm.
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The new colonial movement: China’s Tienwen-1, carrying an as-yet-unnamed lander/rover, successfully inserted itself into orbit around Mars early today.
With a successful Mars Orbit Insertion, the craft has entered a highly eccentric, equatorial capture orbit of the planet, and controllers will now spend two months undertaking initial activations and checkouts in Martian orbit for the primary science mission while altering the craft’s orbit from equatorial to polar.
In April 2021, the lander, with the rover inside, will detach from the orbiter and prepare for Entry, Descent, and Landing. Prior to launch, 23 April 2021 was given as the target landing date.
The landing location is within Utopia Planitia and will — if the orbit insertion burn is completed successfully — utilize a combination of aerobraking, parachute descent, retrorocket firing, and airbag deployments to achieve a soft touchdown on the Martian surface. After landing, the rover will be deployed — ideally on the same day — to begin a planned 90 Sol (Martian day) mission to categorize the local environment.
The suspected landing site in Utopia Planitia is at about 25 degrees north latitude. Though it is in the northern lowland plains, this latitude places it south of the latitudes (greater than 30) that scientists now believe ample ice likely exists underground but accessible. The lander/rover carries radar equipment capable of detecting evidence of underground ice, and will look nonetheless. If it finds any, this will be a significant discovery.
Two down, one to go. Next week, on February 18th, the American rover Perseverance will attempt its landing in Jezero crater.
Click for full image.
The new colonial movement: China’s Tianwen-1Mars spacecraft has taken its first picture of Mars, cropped and reduced to post here to the right.
The photo shows Valles Marineris as the darker splotch in the center-right of the hemisphere, with the northern lowland plain that this canyon feeds into, Chryse Planitia, the triangular dark area to the north east. Both Viking-1 and Mars Pathfinder landed in this region. The whitish border area on the triangle’s eastern flank is the area that Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover will hopefully land in ’23.
The whitish area that caps the north pole is likely the annual mantle of dry ice that covers the planet’s polar regions down to about 60 degrees latitude each winter. Right now it is early spring in the northern hemisphere, and that mantle has only begun to sublimate away. In another few months that mantle will disappear entirely, exposing the terrain below it.
Finally, the very bright edge on the planet’s eastern limb is either caused by a cloud layer, or is simply an over-exposure. Hard to say which.
In the next two weeks three spacecraft will arrive at Mars, including two orbiters and two rovers. This post is simply a heads up so that my readers will know what to expect and when to expect it.
First, we have the arrival in Mars orbit of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Hope orbiter on February 9th at 10:30 am (Eastern). The spacecraft was built in a partnership with U.S. universities and the UAE. Once in orbit it will focus on studying the Martian atmosphere.
Next will arrive China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter on February 10th. The exact time it will do its engine burn to enter orbit has not been announced, as far as I can tell. Once in orbit it will begin a four month reconnaissance of the landing site for its presently unnamed rover, which will descend to the surface in May.
Finally, on February 18th at 12:55 am (Pacific) the American rover Perseverance will land in Jezero Crater on Mars. Essentially an upgraded copy of the Curiosity rover, it will land in the same way, lowered by cables from its re-entry sky crane rocket above it. It will then spend years studying the geology of Mars, while also storing samples that a later mission can recover and return to Earth.
All in all February is going to be an exciting month for the exploration of Mars. Stay tuned for some cool stuff!
China yesterday used its Long March 3B rocket to place a military communications satellite into orbit.
No word on whether this first stage or strap-on boosters lander near any residential communities.
The 2021 launch race:
4 SpaceX
3 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Russia
The U.S. still leads China 6 to 3 in the national rankings. SpaceX’s had planned to do another Starlink launch this morning but has rescheduled it for the weekend.
The new colonial movement: The Chinese public vote to pick the name of the Mars rover presently flying to Mars on its Tianwen-1 orbiter has now been narrowed to ten finalists.
The public can now vote for their favorites from a shortlist of 10 names for the Tianwen-1 mission rover.
The 10 names — Hongyi, Qilin, Nezha, Chitu, Zhurong, Qiusuo, Fenghuolun, Zhuimeng, Tianxing and Xinghuo — are taken from ideas including Chinese mythological figures, Confucian concepts and legendary animals.
Notably Hongyi, from the Confucian Analects, can be translated to “persistence” or perseverance, giving a similar meaning to the NASA Perseverance rover also heading for Mars. Others meanings include:
Zhurong: a god of fire
Qilin: a Chinese unicorn
Chitu: red rabbit
Qiusuo: to explore, referencing an ancient poem
Zhuimeng: to pursue a dream
Nezha: a mythological hero
Fenghuolun: Nezha’s weapons
Tianxing: referring to the motion of celestial bodies
Xinghuo: spark
Personally, I hope they pick Chitu (Red Rabbit), as that matches nicely with the name of China’s lunar rover, Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit).
The new colonial movement: According to the state-run Russian news source TASS, Russia and China are in negotiations to increase Russia’s participation in China’s program to establish a manned base on the Moon.
Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos is in talks with its Chinese colleagues to determine scientific tasks for a lunar base and to discuss technical aspects of the project’s implementation, Deputy Director General for International Cooperation at the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos Sergey Savelyev told TASS. “At present, work is under way to determine possible scientific tasks of mutual interest in the Moon research. Besides, possible technical implementation of the project is being analyzed,” he said.
The article is very vague about details. It does signal that Russia is strongly looking for alternatives to working with the U.S. on its Lunar Gateway project. If it teams up with China NASA will likely begin breaking off all cooperation with Russia because of the legal restrictions that prevent it from partnering in any way with China.
This article also illustrates Russia’s declining status as a space power. For years they have depending on the American program at ISS to have a place in space. Now they are looking to China. All in all, it appears they can’t get their own projects going, and need to attach themselves to others to have any part in the exploration of space.
As for China, that country wants to the good public relations that would come from making its space program international in scope. I expect therefore they want Russia to sign on. I also expect that China will dictate terms, as it doesn’t really need Russia in its effort.
The new colonial movement: Today’s second launch of the Chinese pseudo-private company iSpace’s Hyperbola-1 rocket ended in failure soon after launch.
No details yet on what went wrong.
The company had successfully completed its first orbital launch in July 2019. The smallsat rocket, using four solid-rocket stages, is almost certainly derived from China’s military technology, and thus the company could not exist without significant government supervision.
China today used its Long March 4C rocket to place three military reconnaissance satellites into orbit.
The 2021 launch race:
3 SpaceX
2 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
The U.S. still leads China 5 to 2 in the national rankings.
In a decision clearing a powerful scientist of charges of fraud and plagiarism in more than sixty papers, several of which have already been retracted, the Chinese government has also allowed that scientist to keep his post as head of one China’s universities.
The Chinese communists did punish him, but in a way that in the long run is mostly meaningless.
Cao [Xuetao, president of Nankai University and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering] will be barred from applying for national science and technology projects, lose his qualification as a scientific expert, and be forbidden from recruiting graduate students, all for 1 year. The notification also ordered him to investigate and correct the papers. It appears he will keep his job as president of Nankai University, one of China’s most prestigious universities. (On Nankai’s English-language website, Cao is also listed as one of the university’s two chancellors.) Cao did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
In other words, he keeps his powerful post. To get off so lightly you would almost think he worked for the American FBI and had tried to overthrow a legal election. But then, no, it isn’t the same. The FBI officials who managed the Trump coup have actually seen less punishment. China, as corrupt as its communist government might be, in this case actually managed to administer a tiny bit of justice.
This is the future, as the world’s culture no longer honors law and the truth, but power and authority. And those in power will never be brought to justice, because they are above all those little people who serve them.
This also tells you how little you should trust any results coming from a government scientist. Those results might be real, but before you accept them you better go over them with a fine-tooth comb.
Link here. Unlike past Space News articles which generally made believe these privately funded Chinese companies were truly private, the article at the link today is very clear about the close supervision maintained by the Chinese communist government over these companies. They might get funding through private investment capital, but everything they do is approved by their government.
A 2014 central government policy shift opened the Chinese launch and small satellite sectors to private capital. Since then around 20 launch vehicle-related firms have been established in China.
These commercial launch companies are being supported by a national strategy of civil-military fusion. This includes facilitating the transfer of restricted technologies to approved firms in order to promote innovation in dual-use technology. The State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) oversees activities.
Provincial and local governments are also providing support for space companies as they look to attract high-end and emerging technology firms.
The initial focus of the article is on iSpace, also called Interstellar Glory Space, which is planning another fund-raising round. This company, whose Hyperbola-1 solid rocket reached orbit for the first time in 2019, is now designing a liquid-fueled rocket whose first stage will be reusable.
The article also gives a quick review of some of the other Chinese companies.
It is all part of the new colonial movement, the international race to gain dominance in space. The competition is presently fierce, and should only become fiercer based on China’s decision to encourage internal competition.
