skywatcher
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CNSA news, Updates and Discussions
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skywatcher
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China scraps expendable Long March 9 rocket plan in favor of reusable version
China scraps expendable Long March 9 rocket plan in favor of reusable version
China’s main launch vehicle designer has scrapped plans for an expendable Long March 9 rocket in favor of a design featuring a reusable first stage.
spacenews.com
HELSINKI — Rocket designers with China’s main launch vehicle institute have scrapped plans for an expendable super heavy-lift launcher in favor of a design featuring a reusable first stage.
A new model of a Long March 9 rocket featuring grid fins and no side boosters recently went on display at the ongoing Zhuhai Airshow in southern China, prompting speculation that the long-standing plan of an expendable rocket had been dropped.
Liu Bing, director of the general design department at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), later confirmed the new direction in an interview with China Central Television Nov. 7.
The new, current plan for the rocket will be a three-stage, 108-meter-high, 10-meter-diameter and 4,180 metric ton rocket capable of delivering 150 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), 50 tons to lunar transfer orbit (LTO), or 35 tons to Mars transfer orbit. The rocket is scheduled to be ready for test flight around 2030.
Liu told CCTV however that the design has not been finalized and will likely see changes as the team selects the optimal pathway, while committing to the goal of constantly breaking through technological challenges and increasing its launching power.
The Long March 9 rocket project has been under development at CALT for a number of years. The original plan was to build an expendable rocket capable of delivering 100 metric tons or more to LEO.
The original design would have made the Long March 9 analogous to NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the first of which, for the Artemis 1 mission, currently sits on the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the the Kennedy Space Center with Tropical Storm Nicole approaching Florida.
At the same time, the Sixth Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which also owns CALT, recently performed the first full system hot fire test of the 500-ton-thrust YF-130 kerosene-liquid oxygen engine, thought to be developed to power the expendable Long March 9. How the engine will be used going forward remains to be seen.
Also on display in Zhuhai was China’s new generation crew launch vehicle, sometimes referred to as the Long March 5 Dengyue (“moon landing”) or Long March 5G. The showing indicates a shift from the slanted nose cones on the side cores of earlier models.
The rocket will be capable of sending 27 metric tons into trans-lunar injection. A pair of the new rockets will be capable of sending a crewed spacecraft and, separately, a landing stack, to lunar orbit. This would allow two astronauts to make a landing on the moon.
Liu said the rocket is almost ready for the prototyping stage and would have a test flight in 2027. It was not clear if this referred to the single-stick variant for launches of a new generation crew spacecraft to LEO—earlier slated for a 2026 first launch—or the full, three-core, three-stage version for lunar missions.
CASC recently conducted 300-second mission duty cycle tests of the YF-100M vacuum-optimized engines for the rocket’s second stage.
Vamsi
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Can you post the pic of that reusable version?China scraps expendable Long March 9 rocket plan in favor of reusable version
China scraps expendable Long March 9 rocket plan in favor of reusable version
China’s main launch vehicle designer has scrapped plans for an expendable Long March 9 rocket in favor of a design featuring a reusable first stage.
HELSINKI — Rocket designers with China’s main launch vehicle institute have scrapped plans for an expendable super heavy-lift launcher in favor of a design featuring a reusable first stage.
A new model of a Long March 9 rocket featuring grid fins and no side boosters recently went on display at the ongoing Zhuhai Airshow in southern China, prompting speculation that the long-standing plan of an expendable rocket had been dropped.
Liu Bing, director of the general design department at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), later confirmed the new direction in an interview with China Central Television Nov. 7.
The new, current plan for the rocket will be a three-stage, 108-meter-high, 10-meter-diameter and 4,180 metric ton rocket capable of delivering 150 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), 50 tons to lunar transfer orbit (LTO), or 35 tons to Mars transfer orbit. The rocket is scheduled to be ready for test flight around 2030.
Liu told CCTV however that the design has not been finalized and will likely see changes as the team selects the optimal pathway, while committing to the goal of constantly breaking through technological challenges and increasing its launching power.
The Long March 9 rocket project has been under development at CALT for a number of years. The original plan was to build an expendable rocket capable of delivering 100 metric tons or more to LEO.
The original design would have made the Long March 9 analogous to NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the first of which, for the Artemis 1 mission, currently sits on the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the the Kennedy Space Center with Tropical Storm Nicole approaching Florida.
At the same time, the Sixth Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which also owns CALT, recently performed the first full system hot fire test of the 500-ton-thrust YF-130 kerosene-liquid oxygen engine, thought to be developed to power the expendable Long March 9. How the engine will be used going forward remains to be seen.
Also on display in Zhuhai was China’s new generation crew launch vehicle, sometimes referred to as the Long March 5 Dengyue (“moon landing”) or Long March 5G. The showing indicates a shift from the slanted nose cones on the side cores of earlier models.
The rocket will be capable of sending 27 metric tons into trans-lunar injection. A pair of the new rockets will be capable of sending a crewed spacecraft and, separately, a landing stack, to lunar orbit. This would allow two astronauts to make a landing on the moon.
Liu said the rocket is almost ready for the prototyping stage and would have a test flight in 2027. It was not clear if this referred to the single-stick variant for launches of a new generation crew spacecraft to LEO—earlier slated for a 2026 first launch—or the full, three-core, three-stage version for lunar missions.
CASC recently conducted 300-second mission duty cycle tests of the YF-100M vacuum-optimized engines for the rocket’s second stage.
skywatcher
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Completed CSS operation milestones:
2021
Apr. 29 at 3:23 UTC - launch of Tianhe on CZ-5B
May 29 at 12:55 UTC - launch of Tianzhou 2 on CZ-7
May 29 at 21:01 UTC - docking of Tianzhou 2 with aft port of Tianhe (+propellant transfer)
June 17 at 1:22 UTC - launch of Shenzhou 12 [Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo] on CZ-2F/G
June 17 at 7:54 UTC - docking of Shenzhou 12 [Nie, Liu, Tang] with forward port of Tianhe
July 4 at 0:11–6:57 UTC - spacewalk (EVA-1) from Tianhe airlock (test of new space suits, installation of foot restraints, work platform and exterior panoramic camera, emergency return to airlock training) [Liu, Tang]
Aug. 20 at 0:38–6:33 UTC spacewalk (EVA-2) from Tianhe airlock (installation of external pump assembly, panoramic camera activation, foot restraints & extravehicular working platform installation on the robotic arm) [Nie, Liu]
Sep. 16 at 0:56 UTC - undocking of Shenzhou 12 from forward port of Tianhe (+rendezvous test at nadir port) [Nie, Liu, Tang]
Sep. 17 at 4:45–4:48–5:34 UTC - jettison of OM & deorbit burn & landing of Shenzhou 12 [Nie, Liu, Tang]
Sep. 18 at 2:25~6:25 UTC - undocking of Tianzhou 2 from aft port of Tianhe and docking with forward port of Tianhe (+propellant transfer testing)
Sep. 20 at 7:10 UTC - launch of Tianzhou 3 on CZ-7
Sep. 20 at 14:08 UTC - docking of Tianzhou 3 with aft port of Tianhe
Oct. 15 at 16:23 UTC - launch of Shenzhou 13 on CZ-2F/G [Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping, Ye Guangfu]
Oct. 15 at 22:56 UTC - docking of Shenzhou 13 with nadir port of Tianhe [Zhai, Wang, Ye]
Nov. 7 at 10:51–17:16 UTC spacewalk (EVA-3) from Tianhe airlock (testing of new spacesuit, installation of robotic arm adapter/end effector) [Zhai, Wang]
Dec. 26 at 10:44–16:55 UTC spacewalk (EVA-4) from Tianhe airlock (deployment of external camera platform C, object translation movement testing) [Zhai, Ye]
2022
Jan. 5 at 22:12–22:59 UTC - robotic arm relocation testing of Tianzhou 2 (near port side port)
Jan. 7 at 21:56–23:55 UTC - undocking & docking of Tianzhou 2 at forward port of Tianhe (manual docking test)
Mar. 27 at 7:59 UTC - undocking of Tianzhou 2 from forward port of Tianhe for EOM
Mar. 31 at 10:40 UTC - reentry of Tianzhou 2 over the South Pacific
Apr. 14 at 16:44 UTC - undocking of Shenzhou 13 from nadir port of Tianhe [Zhai, Wang, Ye]
Apr. 16 at 1:07–1:09~1:31–1:56 UTC - jettison of OM & deorbit burn & jettison of PM & landing of Shenzhou 13 [Zhai, Wang, Ye]
Apr. 19 at 21:02–01:06 UTC - undocking of Tianzhou 3 from aft port & docking at forward port of Tianhe
May 10 at 17:56 UTC - launch of Tianzhou 4 on CZ-7
May 11 at 0:47 UTC - docking of Tianzhou 4 with aft port of Tianhe
June 5 at 2:44 UTC - launch of Shenzhou 14 on CZ-2F/G [Chen Dong, Liu Yang, Cai Xuzhe]
June 5 at 9:42 UTC - docking of Shenzhou 14 with nadir port of Tianhe [Chen, Liu, Cai]
July 17 at 2:59 UTC - undocking of Tianzhou 3 from forward port of Tianhe for EOM
July 24 at 6:22 UTC - launch of Wentian on CZ-5B
July 24 at 19:08–19:13 UTC - (soft/hard) docking of Wentian at forward port of Tianhe
July 27 at 3:31 UTC - reentry of Tianzhou 3 over the South Pacific
Sep. 2 at 10:26–16:33 UTC - spacewalk (EVA-5) from Wentian airlock (installation of coolant pump on Wentian, raising a panoramic camera and testing of the small robotic arm) [Chen, Liu]
Sep. 17 at 5:35–9:47 UTC - spacewalk (EVA-6) from Wentian airlock (installation of foot restraint B and an assisting hatch handle, installation of a circulating pump and demonstration of extravehicular emergency rescue procedures) [Chen, Cai]
Sep. 30 3:45–4:44 UTC - robotic relocation of Wentian from forward to starboard on Tianhe
Oct. 31 at 7:37 UTC - launch of Mengtian on CZ-5B
October 31 at 20:27 UTC - docking of Mengtian at forward port of Tianhe
Nov. 3 at 0:48–1:32 UTC - robotic relocation of Mengtian from forward to port on Tianhe
Nov. 9 at 6:55 UTC - undocking of Tianzhou 4 from aft port of Tianhe for EOM
Nov. 12 at 2:03 UTC - launch of Tianzhou 5 on CZ-7
Nov. 12 at 4:10 UTC - docking of Tianzhou 5 with aft port of Tianhe
Nov. 13 at 22:02 UTC - deployment of CubeSat Zhixing 3A (SmartSAT 3A) from Tianzhou 4
Nov. 14 23:21 UTC - Reentry of Tianzhou 4
Nov. 17 at 3:16–8:50 UTC - spacewalk (EVA-7) from Wentian airlock (installing an inter-module connecting device (handrail) and raising the Wentian panoramic camera A) [Chen, Cai]
Nov. 29 at 15:08 UTC - launch of Shenzhou 15 on CZ-2F/G [Fei, Deng, Zhang]
Nov. 29 at 21:41 UTC - docking of Shenzhou 15 with forward port of Tianhe [Fei, Deng, Zhang]
Dec. 4 at ~3:00 UTC - undocking of Shenzhou 14 from nadir port of Tianhe
Dec. 4 at ~12:12 UTC - landing of Shenzhou 14 [Chen, Liu, Cai]
skywatcher
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China is considering expanding its Tiangong space station
China is already considering adding modules to its recently-completed Tiangong space station complex, according to a senior space official.
spacenews.com
HELSINKI — China is already considering adding modules to its recently-completed Tiangong space station complex, according to a senior space official.
China recently completed construction of its three-module, T-shaped Tiangong space station and conducted its first crew handover, seeing the Shenzhou-14 mission astronauts welcome aboard three new astronauts from Shenzhou-15.
The potential next phase would be adding a new core module, Wang Xiang, commander of the space station system at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).
“Following our current design, we can continue to launch an extension module to dock with the forward section of the space station, and the extension module can carry a new hub for docking with the subsequent space vehicles,” Wang told CCTV following the return to Earth of the Shenzhou-14 crew Dec. 4.
Tianhe, the space station core module, was the first piece of the station to be launched back in April 2021. It provides the main propulsion and life support systems and crew quarters for the astronauts on Tiangong and carries a docking hub to facilitate the arrival of spacecraft and further modules.
Wang said that the additional module would provide a larger and more comfortable environment for the astronauts, while providing an environment for better applications of scientific payloads, both inside and outside the module.
A backup or engineering model of the Tianhe core module including docking hubs has been seen in CAST presentations alongside the flight model prior to launch. Models of both the Tianhe and Wentian and Mengtian science modules have also been shown connected for ground testing.
Wang did not state that the plan to expand Tiangong had been approved, but underlined that adding a new core module would open up avenues for more international cooperation in the future, and provide a basis for the next development of the space station.
Yang Liwei, China’s first astronaut to reach space and now deputy chief designer of China’s human spaceflight project, revealed in March this year at the country’s annual political sessions in Beijing that a number of countries have submitted applications to China for astronaut training and joint spaceflight missions. Yang also noted the possibility of tourist flights to Tiangong, while another senior official stated that China is exploring commercial possibilities.
In terms of further ambitions, Wang stated that an extended space station could prove useful for the country’s crewed lunar endeavors, noting that the outpost could be used for testing new generation spacecraft.
China’s original, basic plan for Tiangong is to keep the space station occupied and operational for at least 10 years. A co-orbiting survey space telescope named Xuntian is expected to join Tiangong in orbit no earlier than late 2023.
skywatcher
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China is considering expanding its Tiangong space station
China is already considering adding modules to its recently-completed Tiangong space station complex, according to a senior space official.
HELSINKI — China is already considering adding modules to its recently-completed Tiangong space station complex, according to a senior space official.
China recently completed construction of its three-module, T-shaped Tiangong space station and conducted its first crew handover, seeing the Shenzhou-14 mission astronauts welcome aboard three new astronauts from Shenzhou-15.
The potential next phase would be adding a new core module, Wang Xiang, commander of the space station system at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).
“Following our current design, we can continue to launch an extension module to dock with the forward section of the space station, and the extension module can carry a new hub for docking with the subsequent space vehicles,” Wang told CCTV following the return to Earth of the Shenzhou-14 crew Dec. 4.
Tianhe, the space station core module, was the first piece of the station to be launched back in April 2021. It provides the main propulsion and life support systems and crew quarters for the astronauts on Tiangong and carries a docking hub to facilitate the arrival of spacecraft and further modules.
Wang said that the additional module would provide a larger and more comfortable environment for the astronauts, while providing an environment for better applications of scientific payloads, both inside and outside the module.
A backup or engineering model of the Tianhe core module including docking hubs has been seen in CAST presentations alongside the flight model prior to launch. Models of both the Tianhe and Wentian and Mengtian science modules have also been shown connected for ground testing.
Wang did not state that the plan to expand Tiangong had been approved, but underlined that adding a new core module would open up avenues for more international cooperation in the future, and provide a basis for the next development of the space station.
Yang Liwei, China’s first astronaut to reach space and now deputy chief designer of China’s human spaceflight project, revealed in March this year at the country’s annual political sessions in Beijing that a number of countries have submitted applications to China for astronaut training and joint spaceflight missions. Yang also noted the possibility of tourist flights to Tiangong, while another senior official stated that China is exploring commercial possibilities.
In terms of further ambitions, Wang stated that an extended space station could prove useful for the country’s crewed lunar endeavors, noting that the outpost could be used for testing new generation spacecraft.
China’s original, basic plan for Tiangong is to keep the space station occupied and operational for at least 10 years. A co-orbiting survey space telescope named Xuntian is expected to join Tiangong in orbit no earlier than late 2023.
skywatcher
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All the 8 Chinese active solid launchers as 9 Sep 2022.
1.Smart Dragon 1
2.Hyperbola 1(private)
3.Kuaizhou 1A
4.Long March 11
5.Lijian 1(private)
6.Kuaizhou 11
7.Ceres 1(private)
8. Smart Dragon 3
1.Smart Dragon 1
2.Hyperbola 1(private)
3.Kuaizhou 1A
4.Long March 11
5.Lijian 1(private)
6.Kuaizhou 11
7.Ceres 1(private)
8. Smart Dragon 3
skywatcher
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China Maps Out Plans to Put Astronauts on the Moon and on Mars
www.nytimes.com
Dec. 12, 2022
JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER — Thirty years ago, the Chinese government initiated a secret plan for its space program, including a key goal of building a space station by 2020.
At the time, the country was 11 years from sending its first astronaut into space, and its space efforts were going through a rough patch: Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995 and twice in 1996. The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped to the side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, showering a Chinese village with falling wreckage and flaming fuel that killed or injured at least 63 people.
While grand spaceflight plans of some nations have ended up many years behind schedule, China completed the assembly in orbit of its Tiangong space station in late October, only 22 months later than planned. And on Nov. 29, the Shenzhou 15 mission blasted off from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center deep in the Gobi Desert and took three astronauts to the space station to begin permanent occupancy of the outpost.
These human spaceflight achievements, combined with recent space probes to the moon and Mars, add to the evidence that China is running a steady space marathon rather than competing in a head-to-head space race with the United States. That China’s space program is making good time toward its long-term goals was reinforced during a rare visit for foreign media to the country’s heavily guarded desert rocket base for the Nov. 29 launch — including lengthy interviews with senior Chinese space officials by in for The New York Times.
The Pentagon predicted in August that China would surpass American capabilities in space as soon as 2045.
“I think it’s entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely,” said Lt. General Nina M. Armagno, the staff director of the United States Space Force, at a conference in Sydney the day before the launch of Shenzhou 15. “The progress they’ve made has been stunning — stunningly fast.”
China’s program left the starting line in 1986, decades after the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race. That was when Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader then, approved Project 863, a science and technology development program that included plans for a crewed spacecraft.
The program began to pick up speed in 1992 with Project 921. “The goal set back then was to complete the construction of the Chinese space station around 2020,” said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s crewed space program.
Despite initial embarrassment as rockets kept blowing up instead of reaching space, China picked up the pace in the years that followed. American companies, looking for an inexpensive way to put satellites into space, helped China fix its rocket quality problems. In 2003, Boeing ended up agreeing to pay $32 million in fines for violations of American arms exports controls by a company that it had acquired, Hughes Space and Communications.
Congress ended up banning American space agencies in 2011 from spending any money to cooperate in space with China, except in limited circumstances. The ban, enacted in response to worries about technology theft and human rights violations, blocked any chance of inviting China to join the International Space Station.
Frank Wolf, the retired Republican congressman who pushed through the legislation, said in a recent email that he still believed the legislation was needed. “Bottom line, we should not be collaborating with China,” he said.
China has also tapped into Russian expertise extensively over the years, going back to the founding of Jiuquan in 1958 as a military base for the development of China’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles. Spacecraft carrying the Shenzhou missions strongly resemble Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.
The country’s space officials say that every component of their spacecraft is made in China. But they acknowledge having benefited from cooperation over the years with their northern neighbor.
“China’s manned spaceflight has also had a lot of exchanges with Russia in the process of development — 100 percent localization does not mean that there is no exchange or cooperation,” Mr. Zhou said.
China is now pursuing its own programs and has not partnered with Russia for its new space station.
Having already made big strides in space in recent years, a half dozen Chinese space officials outlined their plans for the coming years in interviews at the launch center, which sits in a vast, frozen expanse of gray gravel in northwestern China, almost four hours’ drive from the nearest large town.
The Tiangong space station weighs nearly 100 tons. That is barely more than the American Skylab that launched in 1973, and it is less than the Mir space station that the Soviet Union began assembling in space in 1986.
Tiangong is being portrayed by state media to the Chinese public as a three-bedroom home in the sky. Still, it is a lot smaller than the International Space Station, which is about 450 tons and has sleeping space for seven.
What the Chinese space station may lack in heft, Chinese officials are trying to offset with efficient management of space — a polite phrase for crowding in astronauts and experiments. But space experts in the West have also suggested that the I.S.S. is bigger than it needs to be, particularly given the miniaturization of computers and other scientific equipment since its development began in 1994.
Starting with the arrival of the three Shenzhou 15 astronauts on Nov. 30, China now plans for its space station to be occupied continuously by at least three astronauts. That will expand to six astronauts during their weeklong overlap every six months when a replacement crew arrives — still short of the International Space Station’s usual complement of seven astronauts.
Ji Qiming, assistant director general of the China Manned Space Program’s engineering office, said that the Shenzhou 15 astronauts would first debug equipment aboard the newly completed space station. They will “complete the unlocking, installation and testing for 15 scientific experiment racks and carry out more than 40 space science experiments and technical tests in the field of space science research and applications, space medicine, space technology and so forth,” he said, without providing specifics.
With efficient space management, the Chinese space station will offer four-fifths as many racks for experiments as the International Space Station does, Mr. Zhou said. One of the experiments will be an extremely cold atomic clock.
“This can play a very good role in some basic physics research, such as non-Newtonian gravitation and gravitational redshift” research, he said.
As soon as next year, the space station will also have a separately launched telescope, Xuntian, orbiting nearby to survey the universe at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths — in many ways, a more sophisticated version of NASA’s 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.
“The characteristic of the sky survey telescope is that it can do large-scale sky surveys — we plan to complete surveying 42 percent of the sky’s area in 10 years,” Mr. Zhou said. “We expect that it can obtain some very important results, especially that our telescope should be unique in the world in the ultraviolet wavelengths.”
The Shenzhou 15 team are set to conduct three or four spacewalks in the coming months as well, Mr. Ji said. They will also use a new robotic cargo airlock that allows scientific experiments to be put out into the frozen vacuum of space.
“It will reach a very low level of temperature so that we can study some very important phenomena in fundamental physics, such as Bose-Einstein condensate,” Mr. Zhou said, referring to a condensed state of matter only found at temperatures close to absolute zero.
Despite limited direct cooperation, Chinese officials say that they have learned important lessons by watching their American counterparts. Chinese officials are glad, for example, that they did not follow an early decision by NASA in the 1970s: to build a large but costly space plane like the space shuttle.
Instead, they have been impressed by the work of Elon Musk’s rocket company.
“In 2009, when I first learned about SpaceX in a meeting in the U.S., I was surprised: I never heard of this company when I was in the U.S. before, how did it grow into such a large company so quickly,” Mr. Zhou said.
From watching SpaceX, China’s space officials see value in making reusable rockets and spacecraft.
“The space shuttle is very complicated,” Mr. Zhou said, while the capsules China and SpaceX are using are “relatively easier technologically to ensure reliability and safety, and it is also more economical.” He later asserted that, “within a few years, we will be able to achieve the reuse of re-entry capsules for our new generation spaceships.”
Developing reusable rocket technology in China has become even more important following considerable international criticism of its Long March 5B rockets. China allowed massive core boosters from these rockets to fall out of control to Earth while sending each of the three modules of the Tiangong space station into orbit.
R. Nicholas Burns, the United States ambassador to China, said in an interview that he had encouraged China “to be more cautious about the uncontrolled re-entry of large rocket bodies.”
China has bristled at criticism of the Long March 5B’s core boosters. One caused damage during a test flight in 2020 when it fell in West Africa, but none of the rocket stages have hurt or killed anyone so far. At least one more launch of the rocket is planned in 2023, when the Xuntian telescope goes to orbit.
Chinese officials say they don’t just want to avoid uncontrolled re-entry, but to reuse rockets.
“We will take reuse as an important technical goal of our projects — reuse will bring technical challenges, but it will bring better economics and will also enable better development of the aerospace industry,” Mr. Zhou said
Rong Yi, chief designer of the Long March 2F carrier rocket that took the Shenzhou 15 mission into space, said that on Nov. 26, China had tested a prototype for a reusable rocket booster that burned liquid oxygen and kerosene. Even before then, she said, China had been working hard on steering technologies to make sure that a reusable rocket would land in a specific location.
Additionally, He Yu, chief commander of crewed spaceship systems at the China Academy of Space Technology, said that, in May 2020, China had already tested a reusable prototype for a spaceship capsule.
The effort to develop reusable spacecraft is running parallel to Chinese officials’ plans to put astronauts on the moon. They have not announced a precise timetable but have previously hinted that it would not happen later than 2030.
Mr. Ji and Mr. Zhou each said that considerable work had already been done on a crewed lunar lander.
“These works have laid a solid foundation for the manned lunar exploration project,” Mr. Ji said during a news conference at the Jiuquan launch center, before making an allusion to Chinese mythology: “I believe the dream of Chinese people to embrace the moon from the ninth heaven will come true in the near future.”
But sending a person to the moon has been done. Sending a person to Mars is an even bigger prize for China. It has placed an emphasis on shortening the duration of such a trip, perhaps with nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines. Officials are also determined that any journey will be a round-trip from which all astronauts return alive and in good health.
“Technically, it is feasible in theory, but it has huge challenges in engineering because the scale is very large, we have estimated at least 900 days of travel” based on current technologies, Mr. Zhou said.
With nuclear propulsion, the trip could be trimmed to 500 days, he said, without predicting whether China would adopt that approach.
Huang Weifen, chief designer of China’s astronaut program, said she was looking at ways to make sure that astronauts could stay healthy for a 500-day trip.
“It is another qualitative leap in flying — a very big challenge for people in terms of the medical issues, the psychological issues and living guarantees,” she said.
Despite all these difficulties, China is intent on sticking to its long-term plan for space.
“Landing on the moon, landing on Mars, are very significant progress in the development of human civilization,” Mr. Zhou said. “We may understand and realize its further value step by step. But its role in the development of our human civilization is huge, so it is worth our efforts — it’s worth fighting for.”
Li You contributed research from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer in 2013 for its coverage of Apple, and he was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998 for his coverage of the dangers of sport utility vehicles.
China Maps Out Plans to Put Astronauts on the Moon and on Mars
Chinese officials at a desert rocket base described plans for their new space station and for reusable rockets, as well as travel beyond near-Earth orbit.
Dec. 12, 2022
JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER — Thirty years ago, the Chinese government initiated a secret plan for its space program, including a key goal of building a space station by 2020.
At the time, the country was 11 years from sending its first astronaut into space, and its space efforts were going through a rough patch: Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995 and twice in 1996. The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped to the side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, showering a Chinese village with falling wreckage and flaming fuel that killed or injured at least 63 people.
While grand spaceflight plans of some nations have ended up many years behind schedule, China completed the assembly in orbit of its Tiangong space station in late October, only 22 months later than planned. And on Nov. 29, the Shenzhou 15 mission blasted off from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center deep in the Gobi Desert and took three astronauts to the space station to begin permanent occupancy of the outpost.
These human spaceflight achievements, combined with recent space probes to the moon and Mars, add to the evidence that China is running a steady space marathon rather than competing in a head-to-head space race with the United States. That China’s space program is making good time toward its long-term goals was reinforced during a rare visit for foreign media to the country’s heavily guarded desert rocket base for the Nov. 29 launch — including lengthy interviews with senior Chinese space officials by in for The New York Times.
The Pentagon predicted in August that China would surpass American capabilities in space as soon as 2045.
“I think it’s entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely,” said Lt. General Nina M. Armagno, the staff director of the United States Space Force, at a conference in Sydney the day before the launch of Shenzhou 15. “The progress they’ve made has been stunning — stunningly fast.”
China’s program left the starting line in 1986, decades after the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race. That was when Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader then, approved Project 863, a science and technology development program that included plans for a crewed spacecraft.
The program began to pick up speed in 1992 with Project 921. “The goal set back then was to complete the construction of the Chinese space station around 2020,” said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s crewed space program.
Despite initial embarrassment as rockets kept blowing up instead of reaching space, China picked up the pace in the years that followed. American companies, looking for an inexpensive way to put satellites into space, helped China fix its rocket quality problems. In 2003, Boeing ended up agreeing to pay $32 million in fines for violations of American arms exports controls by a company that it had acquired, Hughes Space and Communications.
Congress ended up banning American space agencies in 2011 from spending any money to cooperate in space with China, except in limited circumstances. The ban, enacted in response to worries about technology theft and human rights violations, blocked any chance of inviting China to join the International Space Station.
Frank Wolf, the retired Republican congressman who pushed through the legislation, said in a recent email that he still believed the legislation was needed. “Bottom line, we should not be collaborating with China,” he said.
China has also tapped into Russian expertise extensively over the years, going back to the founding of Jiuquan in 1958 as a military base for the development of China’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles. Spacecraft carrying the Shenzhou missions strongly resemble Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.
The country’s space officials say that every component of their spacecraft is made in China. But they acknowledge having benefited from cooperation over the years with their northern neighbor.
“China’s manned spaceflight has also had a lot of exchanges with Russia in the process of development — 100 percent localization does not mean that there is no exchange or cooperation,” Mr. Zhou said.
China is now pursuing its own programs and has not partnered with Russia for its new space station.
Having already made big strides in space in recent years, a half dozen Chinese space officials outlined their plans for the coming years in interviews at the launch center, which sits in a vast, frozen expanse of gray gravel in northwestern China, almost four hours’ drive from the nearest large town.
The Tiangong space station weighs nearly 100 tons. That is barely more than the American Skylab that launched in 1973, and it is less than the Mir space station that the Soviet Union began assembling in space in 1986.
Tiangong is being portrayed by state media to the Chinese public as a three-bedroom home in the sky. Still, it is a lot smaller than the International Space Station, which is about 450 tons and has sleeping space for seven.
What the Chinese space station may lack in heft, Chinese officials are trying to offset with efficient management of space — a polite phrase for crowding in astronauts and experiments. But space experts in the West have also suggested that the I.S.S. is bigger than it needs to be, particularly given the miniaturization of computers and other scientific equipment since its development began in 1994.
Starting with the arrival of the three Shenzhou 15 astronauts on Nov. 30, China now plans for its space station to be occupied continuously by at least three astronauts. That will expand to six astronauts during their weeklong overlap every six months when a replacement crew arrives — still short of the International Space Station’s usual complement of seven astronauts.
Ji Qiming, assistant director general of the China Manned Space Program’s engineering office, said that the Shenzhou 15 astronauts would first debug equipment aboard the newly completed space station. They will “complete the unlocking, installation and testing for 15 scientific experiment racks and carry out more than 40 space science experiments and technical tests in the field of space science research and applications, space medicine, space technology and so forth,” he said, without providing specifics.
With efficient space management, the Chinese space station will offer four-fifths as many racks for experiments as the International Space Station does, Mr. Zhou said. One of the experiments will be an extremely cold atomic clock.
“This can play a very good role in some basic physics research, such as non-Newtonian gravitation and gravitational redshift” research, he said.
As soon as next year, the space station will also have a separately launched telescope, Xuntian, orbiting nearby to survey the universe at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths — in many ways, a more sophisticated version of NASA’s 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.
“The characteristic of the sky survey telescope is that it can do large-scale sky surveys — we plan to complete surveying 42 percent of the sky’s area in 10 years,” Mr. Zhou said. “We expect that it can obtain some very important results, especially that our telescope should be unique in the world in the ultraviolet wavelengths.”
The Shenzhou 15 team are set to conduct three or four spacewalks in the coming months as well, Mr. Ji said. They will also use a new robotic cargo airlock that allows scientific experiments to be put out into the frozen vacuum of space.
“It will reach a very low level of temperature so that we can study some very important phenomena in fundamental physics, such as Bose-Einstein condensate,” Mr. Zhou said, referring to a condensed state of matter only found at temperatures close to absolute zero.
Despite limited direct cooperation, Chinese officials say that they have learned important lessons by watching their American counterparts. Chinese officials are glad, for example, that they did not follow an early decision by NASA in the 1970s: to build a large but costly space plane like the space shuttle.
Instead, they have been impressed by the work of Elon Musk’s rocket company.
“In 2009, when I first learned about SpaceX in a meeting in the U.S., I was surprised: I never heard of this company when I was in the U.S. before, how did it grow into such a large company so quickly,” Mr. Zhou said.
From watching SpaceX, China’s space officials see value in making reusable rockets and spacecraft.
“The space shuttle is very complicated,” Mr. Zhou said, while the capsules China and SpaceX are using are “relatively easier technologically to ensure reliability and safety, and it is also more economical.” He later asserted that, “within a few years, we will be able to achieve the reuse of re-entry capsules for our new generation spaceships.”
Developing reusable rocket technology in China has become even more important following considerable international criticism of its Long March 5B rockets. China allowed massive core boosters from these rockets to fall out of control to Earth while sending each of the three modules of the Tiangong space station into orbit.
R. Nicholas Burns, the United States ambassador to China, said in an interview that he had encouraged China “to be more cautious about the uncontrolled re-entry of large rocket bodies.”
China has bristled at criticism of the Long March 5B’s core boosters. One caused damage during a test flight in 2020 when it fell in West Africa, but none of the rocket stages have hurt or killed anyone so far. At least one more launch of the rocket is planned in 2023, when the Xuntian telescope goes to orbit.
Chinese officials say they don’t just want to avoid uncontrolled re-entry, but to reuse rockets.
“We will take reuse as an important technical goal of our projects — reuse will bring technical challenges, but it will bring better economics and will also enable better development of the aerospace industry,” Mr. Zhou said
Rong Yi, chief designer of the Long March 2F carrier rocket that took the Shenzhou 15 mission into space, said that on Nov. 26, China had tested a prototype for a reusable rocket booster that burned liquid oxygen and kerosene. Even before then, she said, China had been working hard on steering technologies to make sure that a reusable rocket would land in a specific location.
Additionally, He Yu, chief commander of crewed spaceship systems at the China Academy of Space Technology, said that, in May 2020, China had already tested a reusable prototype for a spaceship capsule.
The effort to develop reusable spacecraft is running parallel to Chinese officials’ plans to put astronauts on the moon. They have not announced a precise timetable but have previously hinted that it would not happen later than 2030.
Mr. Ji and Mr. Zhou each said that considerable work had already been done on a crewed lunar lander.
“These works have laid a solid foundation for the manned lunar exploration project,” Mr. Ji said during a news conference at the Jiuquan launch center, before making an allusion to Chinese mythology: “I believe the dream of Chinese people to embrace the moon from the ninth heaven will come true in the near future.”
But sending a person to the moon has been done. Sending a person to Mars is an even bigger prize for China. It has placed an emphasis on shortening the duration of such a trip, perhaps with nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines. Officials are also determined that any journey will be a round-trip from which all astronauts return alive and in good health.
“Technically, it is feasible in theory, but it has huge challenges in engineering because the scale is very large, we have estimated at least 900 days of travel” based on current technologies, Mr. Zhou said.
With nuclear propulsion, the trip could be trimmed to 500 days, he said, without predicting whether China would adopt that approach.
Huang Weifen, chief designer of China’s astronaut program, said she was looking at ways to make sure that astronauts could stay healthy for a 500-day trip.
“It is another qualitative leap in flying — a very big challenge for people in terms of the medical issues, the psychological issues and living guarantees,” she said.
Despite all these difficulties, China is intent on sticking to its long-term plan for space.
“Landing on the moon, landing on Mars, are very significant progress in the development of human civilization,” Mr. Zhou said. “We may understand and realize its further value step by step. But its role in the development of our human civilization is huge, so it is worth our efforts — it’s worth fighting for.”
Li You contributed research from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer in 2013 for its coverage of Apple, and he was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998 for his coverage of the dangers of sport utility vehicles.
skywatcher
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Was 2022 a Good Year for Chinese Space?
skywatcher
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close up image of hot fire test of LOX/LH2 YF77 for next Long March 5 on 9 Jan 2023
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Individual engine test? Shouldn't the entire first stage (has two engines) should be tested at once?
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So that means one or two tests of post-boosters stage are pending.I found this on CASC Wechat page
“一日三试”，来了！
mp.weixin.qq.com
Two tests of YF-77 individually and a third test of two engines clustered in a stage are due before actual launch.
Or there is a different way of operations in China?
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Why China Keeps So Many Different Rockets Active
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China picks 4 international payloads for historic sample-return mission to moon's far side
Chang'e 6 will collect the first-ever samples from the far side of the moon.
www.space.com
China has revealed that four international experiments will fly on its historic Chang'e 6 sample-return mission to the far side of the moon in 2025.
Chang'e 6 is a follow up to China's successful 2020 Chang'e 5 mission, which performed the first moon sample return in more than 40 years, delivering 3.75 pounds (1.7 kilograms) of lunar material to Earth.
While the earlier mission targeted the near side of the moon, which always faces Earth, Chang'e 6 will launch around 2025 to target the South Pole-Aitken basin (SPA) of the lunar far side. It will rely on a relay satellite beyond the moon to provide a means of communication between Earth and the robotic spacecraft.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has now revealed that four additional instruments and spacecraft will join the mission, following a 2019 call for proposals.
The selected experiments are the DORN (Detection of Outgassing Radon) experiment from the French space agency CNES, which will study how the noble gas radon escapes from the lunar regolith. Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics-Frascati National Labs (INFN-LNF) will contribute a laser retroreflector, designed to bounce light back to its source, allowing scientists to measure the time taken for the journey and convert the information into an accurate distance. NASA's Apollo 11, Apollo 14, and Apollo 15 missions all carried laser-ranging retroreflectors.
Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface (NILS), an experiment from the Swedish Institute for Space Physics, will also be along for the ride, seeking to detect negative ions emitted from the lunar surface after interacting with the solar wind. The experiment is funded by the European Space Agency.
Finally, Chang'e 6 will also carry the ICUBE-Q cubesat for Pakistan, with some input from Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Chang'e 6 will launch from China's coastal Wenchang spaceport on a Long March 5 rocket. The mission will consist of a service module, a lander, an ascent vehicle for lifting off from the moon and a reentry module for delivering up to 4.4 lbs (2 kg) of collected samples safely through a fiery reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
The SPA basin is a colossal, ancient impact crater roughly 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) in diameter that covers almost a quarter of the moon's far side and is thought to hold clues about the history of the moon and the solar system.
Separately, CNSA has issued a call for proposals(opens in new tab) to join its Chang'e 7 mission to the lunar south pole. The multi-spacecraft mission is expected to launch around 2026, having earlier been slated for around 2024.
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China's second lunar sample return mission Chang'E 6 & Queqiao-2 relay satellites in 2024
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Second semi-system hot fire test of YF-90 on Feb 2 2023
YF-90 is a 220 ton thrust staged combustion cycle cryogenic engine developed for the second stage of Long March 9.
YF-90 is a 220 ton thrust staged combustion cycle cryogenic engine developed for the second stage of Long March 9.
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China's next human rated launch vehicle might be officially named as Long March 10 (formally known as Long March 5G or Long March 5C or Long March DY). Its first demonstration flight is scheduled for 2027~2028 with a possible crewed moon landing in early 2030s.
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CASC YF-100 rocket engine factory
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