Another look at China’s space station plans
Link here.
The article provides a good review of what they’ve done so far, and what they plan to do, including some good pictures of the planned station.
Tag: China
China to build space communications facility in Argentina
The competition heats up: China and Argentina have announced plans to build a communications facility in the latter country.
Long March 7 heads to spaceport
The competition heats up: The first of China’s new generation of rockets, Long March 7, is now on its way to its spaceport for its first launch next month.
The first flight of the 53-metre-tall Long March 7 will take place in late June, according to CASC’s Yang Baohua, and will test the design and performance indicators. The 600 tonne, 3.35m diameter rocket will carry a scaled-down version of a new Chinese re-entry capsule for human spaceflight, chief designer of China’s human space program Zhou Jianping revealed in March.
The article provides some good detailed information about China’s new rockets, noting that this rocket has been designed to launch manned and cargo spacecraft into orbit, making it the equivalent of Russia’s Soyuz rocket. The more powerful Long March 5, set for launch later this year when it will put China’s next space station prototype into orbit, will be their equivalent of Russia’s Proton. In both cases, however, they will be better than Russia’s rockets, more advanced and upgraded with greater capabilities.
The article also makes note of China’s new Wenchang spaceport on the coast, which took six years to build.
First Long March 5 begins assembly
The competition heats up: China has begun assembly of its first Long March 5 rocket, set for launch in September.
Yang Hujun, vice chief engineer, has spoken about the next steps for the Long March-5 project. “After the assembly is finished in the first half of this year, it will take a little more than a month to test it to ensure that the product is in good shape. The first launch will be made after it is out of the plant in the latter half of the year. “
The rocket will be able to put about 25 tons into orbit, making it one of the most powerful rockets in the world. They plan to use it on its first launch to put their next space station into orbit.
China to launch full space station in 2018
The competition heats up: China has announced that it will launch the first module of its full space station, named Tianhe-1, in 2018.
The article also gives an short summary of China’s space plans in 2016:
2016 will also be a busy and crucial year for China. Assembly of its second space lab, Tiangong-2, has been completed and the space station prototype will launch in September. This is set to be followed a month later by the Shenzhou-11 crewed mission with two Chinese astronauts. It will also debut new launch vehicles, the Long March 5 and 7, which will greatly increase the country’s launch capabilities.
Long March 5 is capable of putting 25 tons in orbit, making it comparable to Boeing’s Delta 4 Heavy, the most powerful rocket presently operational.
China grows mouse embryos in space
During a two week unmanned biology satellite mission, Chinese scientists successfully demonstrated that mouse embryos can develop in weightlessness.
The team developed an embryo culture system and placed it within a small enclosed chamber [on the spacecraft] that provides the ideal conditions for the embryos to develop in space. While the chamber was in orbit, a camera attached to the experiment took photographs of the embryos as they developed in microgravity, and sent these images back to Earth. With the aid of their imaging technology, the researchers were able to observe how the mammalian two-cell stage embryos developed into blastocysts under microgravity after four days. Blastocysts are structures formed in the very early development of mammals. In humans blastocysts begin to form five days after fertilization.
The researchers will now compare their space-developed embryos to those cultured in normal laboratory environments on Earth to see what differences there are between the two at both a cellular and molecular level.
None of this proves that life can be conceived and grow in weightlessness. It does however suggest that it might be possible.
Construction of China’s next space station complete
The competition heats up: China has completed construction of its next space station module and plans to launch it in September, with a 30 day manned mission to it to follow one month later.
This single module station, like China’s first, is really just a prototype, preparing them for the assembly of their multi-module station, beginning in 2018.
China shuts down its first space station
Though still in orbit, China has turned off Tiangong-1, its first space station, launched in 2011 and since visited by three manned crews.
The news story, from the state-run Chinese news organization, notes that the module’s orbit will slowly decay and eventually burn up in the atmosphere. It does not say how the Chinese intend to control that re-entry, since Tiangong-1 is likely large enough for some parts of it to survive and hit the ground.
China plans first commercial rocket company
The competition heats up: A Chinese company has announced plans to start a new commercial rocket company to compete for the burgeoning space launch market.
China Sanjiang Space Group Co. is preparing to enter the commercial-rocket business with a launch slated for 2017, Xinhua reported Tuesday, citing the company’s chief engineer Hu Shengyun. Some Internet companies have expressed interest in collaborating on commercial launches, Hu said.
The Kuaizhou-11, translated as “fast vessel,” rocket is being developed by the Fourth Academy of China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp., a major missile supplier to the People’s Liberation Army, according to China Daily.
There is not much information at the link. The rocket was first launched in 2013, but not much has been revealed about it since.
More details about China’s space station, planned for launch in 2020
The competition heats up: The chief designer of China’s human space program revealed more details today about their planned space station in talking with reporters at China’s on-going parliamentary sessions.
Zhou Jianping, speaking to state media on the sidelines of China’s ongoing parliamentary sessions, explained that the project will include three modules, two 30m solar panel ‘wings’, two robotic arms and a telescope dubbed ‘China’s Hubble’. Zhou, who is a member of China’s top consultative body currently in session in Beijing, said the space station will comprise of a core module and two labs forming a T-shape, each weighing about 20 tons.
The core module is scheduled to be launched in 2018, by the new heavy lift Long March 5 rocket, which will make its maiden flight in September and be capable of lifting 25 tonnes to low Earth orbit.
“China’s Hubble” will be a module flying near the station so that if it needs maintenance the station astronauts will be able to do the work.
China’s next manned mission
The competition heats up: The next Chinese manned mission will occur in the fall of 2016 and will have the astronauts remain in space for 30 days on a new space station launched during the summer.
After the astronauts have completed their flight, China will then launch their first unmanned cargo craft, dubbed Tianzhou-1, to dock with the station, using a new medium-lift rocket, Long March 7, which will get its first test flight this coming June.
China’s long term space science plans
This article provides a nice detailed look at China’s planned space science missions, including an X-ray space telescope that will look for the X-ray counterparts of gravitational wave events. They also hope to launch their first Mars mission, which will include a lander, orbiter, and rover, by 2020.
China releases images from lunar rover and lander
China has made available a new batch of very cool images taken by its Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover, and Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society has figured out how to view them.
In a recent guest blog post, Quanzhi Ye pointed to the Chinese version of the Planetary Data System, and shared the great news that Chang’e 3 lander data are now public. The website is a little bit difficult to use, but last week I managed to download all of the data from two of the cameras — a total of 35 Gigabytes of data! — and I’ve spent the subsequent week figuring out what’s there and how to handle it.
So, space fans, without further ado, here, for the first time in a format easily accessible to the public, are hundreds and hundreds of science-quality images from the Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover. I don’t usually host entire data sets (PDS-formatted and all) but I made an exception in this case because the Chinese website is a bit challenging to use.
The image above is a cropped version of Yutu, taken by the lander. Be sure and go to the link to see the full image as well as others.
China goes for the Moon
The competition heats up: China has announced plans to land the first probe on the far side of the Moon.
They are aiming for a launch two years hence. No word on how they plan to communicate with the lander, as direct communications will not be possible.
China has big plans in space in 2016
The competition heats up: In 2016 China plans to launch its next space station, man it for the first time, while also initiating the launch of two new rockets.
The Chinese as yet have not provided any specific launch dates for any of these projects.
New China manned vehicle under development
The competition heats up: China has begun development of two versions of a second generation manned capsule.
Instead of the three-module arrangement of the current Shenzhou vehicle, the future Chinese crew vehicle will adopt a two-module arrangement, with a large inhabitable crew module at the front, and an uninhabitable cylindrical-shaped service module at back. The size of the re-entry vehicle will be twice of Shenzhou’s, capable of accommodating up to six crew members. A docking port and its associated docking sensors are fitted to the front-end of the crew module. The spacecraft can be fitted with two different service modules, with different propulsion systems and propellant capacities.
In other words, rather than copy and upgrade the design of the Russian Soyuz, as they did with their Shenzhou capsule, they will copy and upgrade the American Apollo capsule.
China unveils model of planned 2020 Martian probe
The competition heats up: China today unveiled a one-third scale model of its planned Martian lander/rover, scheduled for launch in 2020.
If they succeed in putting a lander and rover on Mars, China will have clearly demonstrated the capability to do almost anything in space that the United States can do. The competition in the coming decades should thus be most interesting.
Posted from Tucson International Airport.
Yutu still operational after two years
Despite an inability to move, China’s rover Yutu has now set the longevity operational record for rover on the Moon.
Yutu was deployed and landed on the moon via China’s Chang’e-3 lunar probe in 2013, staying longer than the Soviet Union’s 1970 moon rover Lunokhod 1, which spent 11 months on the moon. Its operations have streamed live through Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, and its Weibo account has nearly 600,000 followers.
Yutu experienced a mechanical control abnormality in 2014, but it was revived within a month and, though it is unable to move, it continues to collect data, send and receive signals, and record images and video.
Two NASA employees indicted for allowing Chinese scientist access
Two NASA supervisors from the Langley Research Center in Virginia have been indicted for allowing a Chinese scientist unrestricted access to the facilities there for two years, including allowing the scientist to return to China with a NASA-issued laptop.
What I find amazing about this indictment is that a U.S. attorney in the Obama Justice Department has issued it. The Obama administration and NASA administrator Charles Bolden want unrestricted cooperation with China, and have even done some things that could also violate the same laws against providing U.S. technology to China. Under these conditions, I would have thought the attorney would have been ordered to drop the case, just as the Obama administration has done with numerous other examples where someone in that administration did something illegal and got away with it.
China launches commercial satellite
The competition heats up: China’s Long March 3B rocket successfully placed a commercial communications satellite in orbit on Saturday.
Busy times for the launch business. And it appears that things will get even busier in the coming months.