China's Space Program News Thread

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China has started to assemble a new generation of heavy-lift rocket Long March-5, which is scheduled for launch later this year. The rocket has a liftoff weight of 869 tons.

Using non-toxic and pollution-free propellant, the 60-meter-long rocket is five meters in diameter and will be equipped with four thrusters, each measuring 3.35 meters in diameter like previous Long March rockets. The research and development started in 2006 and has been completed. The assembly work has started in north China's Tianjin Municipality. It is scheduled to be launched in September.

"Research and development has been finished. Work has started to assemble it. 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," said the Long March-5 project's vice chief engineer, Yang Hujun.

The Long March-5 rocket will come in six slightly different models for the manned space program and the lunar and Martian exploration program."The third phase of lunar exploration requires around-the-moon flight, landing and returning. This means that the size of the probe must not be small. Besides, our space station will have 20-tons class single cabin and it cannot be knocked down. It must be sent to the orbit by a big rocket," Yang said.

China's Long March-7 rocket will carry into space the national flag that was hoisted at Tian'anmen Square on Sunday to mark the National Day of Space Flight . The carrier rocket will be launched later this year. Currently China has completed the final assembly and testing of Long March-7, which will soon be transported to the launch site.

 

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Jilin-1: live video from space...

 

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LM-5...

 

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This comes out to an average of 30 launches per year! Assuming increasing rate, the year 2020 will likely have more launches than 2016.

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150 Long March rocket launches scheduled 2016-2020
by Staff Writers
Beijing (XNA) Apr 25, 2016

"Our first 100 Long March missions took us 37 years. But it only took us seven years to complete the latest 100," Chen said.


China will launch about 150 of its Long March carrier rockets over the next five years, one of its space chiefs said on Friday, days ahead of celebrations marking the launch of the country's first satellite 46 years ago.

"In the 13th Five-Year Plan period [2016-2020], we will see about 30 launches [of the Long March series] each year," Chen Xuechuan, assistant president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told Xinhua.

There were 86 Long March missions in the five years from 2011 to 2015, and 48 from 2006 to 2010.

Chen said China is quickly catching up with other countries after being a relative latecomer in human space endeavors.

The launch of the SJ-10 retrievable scientific research satellite earlier this month marked the 226th mission of the Long March rocket family, and the pace of launches is accelerating.

"Our first 100 Long March missions took us 37 years. But it only took us seven years to complete the latest 100," Chen said.

This year alone, China will conduct more than 20 space missions, including launching two navigation satellites, and a satellite designed for high-definition Earth observation.

China's second orbiting space lab, Tiangong-2, will also be launched in fall this year, and it is scheduled to dock with manned spacecraft Shenzhou-11 in the fourth quarter.

Shenzhou-11 will reportedly carry two male Chinese astronauts for a 30-day mission on board Shenzhou-11 and Tiangong-2.

In addition, two new-generation Long March rockets, the heavy-lift Long March-5 and the medium-sized Long March-7, will also make their maiden space trips this year, according to Chen.

He said the two less environmentally damaging models will eventually replace the earlier Long March rockets to meet demand for space launches at home and abroad.

China's first Space Day has been scheduled for April 24, the day in 1970 on which Dong Fang Hong 1, or The East is Red 1, was launched into Earth orbit on a Long March rocket.

 

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Jilin-1: live video from space...

How come we don't see more live video from space? If my memory serves me right, this seems like the first one I've ever seen.

 

[AndrewS]

150 launches over 5 years is a lot.

But I'm disappointed that there's no mention of using reusable rockets like with SpaceX, because that is where the future lies.

I think everyone is very impressed with what they've done eg.
a) Bidding 40% less than ULA for space launch contracts even without having to reuse the rockets.
b) And once they start reusing the rockets, their launch costs could easily drop 10x.

Even the Chinese rocket guys have said publicly that they can't currently match them for costs, and this is pretty old news.

So why isn't there any mention of reusable rocket development?

The US places an embargo on the use of US space and rocket technology to China - so China is going to have to develop this by themselves anyway - so I find it very curious that we haven't heard anything.

Perhaps the space industry in China is ripe for opening up to private investment like in the US?

Within China, we've seen an explosion of electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle development since the industry was opened up to private investment. And like in the USA - it is China's technology companies/billionaires that are leading the disruption. And given the conditions in China - the auto industry experts publicly state that they expect China to lead the industry - despite all the publicity about Tesla.

The investment required to kickstart a private space industry also looks affordable if we look at the SpaceX costs, and the Chinese companies have the advantage of modelling much of their operation on what SpaceX has already done and learned from

Falcon 1
$100million Development Cost
$7million Single Use Rocket Launch Cost
180-600kg Payload to LEO

Falcon 9 v1
$300million Development Cost
$60million Single Use Rocket Launch Cost
10,450 kg Payload to LEO

Falcon 9 v1.1
$850million Development
$61million Single Use Rocket Launch Cost
13,150 kg Payload to LEO

And the key principles they would be working to are:

1. Reusability
2. Standardisation
3. Builtin Redundancy eg. One engine failure allowed on launch, Second engine failure allowed after xx seconds. Or the use of COTS hardware with multiple redundancy instead of expensive radiation hardened components.
4. A general lean engineering exercise

 

[Blitzo]

150 launches over 5 years is a lot.

But I'm disappointed that there's no mention of using reusable rockets like with SpaceX, because that is where the future lies.

Searching "China reusable rocket" will actually bring up quite a few recent articles which directly address your inquiry.

An English language article, reporting from a CALT official that they definitely are looking into reusable rockets, with one method involving the use of parachutes which has already been tested by prototypes:

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More importantly, this is the earlier original Chinese language article from a couple of weeks ago, where the CALT official goes into more detail about the kinds of methods they're looking at -- parachute+airbag (which seems to be the one which had recently undergone a prototype test of some sort), and vertical landing (which is similar to Falcon/Blue Origin powered landing) are the ones they're investigating:

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Funnily enough, the CALT official in the article literally said "不用担心，中国运载火箭技术研究院研发中心一直在做可回收火箭的研发，我们只是说得少而已" -- which translates to "don't worry, CALT has been constantly doing R&D of reusable/recyclable rockets, we just talk about it less"... and I think that is probably a direct response to people who wonder if SpaceX's reusable rockets will somehow immediately leave all other space competitors in the dust.


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So in short, CALT definitely is looking into reusable rockets and increasing affordability, and have been doing so for a few years now.

Even without reusability, they're developing a whole bunch of low cost single use satellite launching rockets like Naga for short term competitiveness.

 

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China to launch first high-resolution commercial remote sensing satellite in 2016
China is going to launch its first high-resolution commercial remote sensing satellite next year and will establish a high-resolution commercial remote sensing satellites system around the year 2022, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation(CASC) Thursday.

Sixteen 0.5-meter-resolution optical satellites, four high-end optical satellites, four microwave and hyperspectral satellites and several micro satellites, will make up the system. Xu Wen, director of Application Center from CASA, explained the difference between the updated satellites and the old ones.

"Take a car for an example. We can only see the shape of the car with 1-meter resolution satellite we used before, but see the whole car and the shape of widows with current 0.5-meter-resolution. It's a great leap," said Xu.

"Make another example. It takes us two days to get information from earthquake stricken area before but one to two hours now. This change helps a lot in emergency relief," Xu added.

 

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LM-7 shipped to hainan for maiden flight

 

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China telescope development breakthrough

At the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics in Jilin province, scientists have just produced a silicon carbide mirror blank more than 4-meters in diameter which is the main element of large telescopes for exploring the outer reaches of the universe

What is most significant, though, is that the institute developed the giant mirror blank at a time when most of this advanced equipment is made in either Europe or the United States. It was an epic undertaking that began in the late 1990s when the institute began its research on optical- grade silicon carbide ceramic materials.

A silicon carbide mirror blank differs significantly from those made of other materials because it helps to increase resolution for better visual quality when installed in telescope or satellite.