China's Space Program News Thread

[iantsai]

The first question is is he still flight rated? He could have assumed many other administrative duties but still maintain his flight rating, Which means theoretically he is still in the pool of astronauts who can be evaluate for future missions.

The answer is YES.

Yang had a interview with PLA Daily at March 5, before the Tianhe launching, revealing that:

There were three batches of astronauts by far and the third batch were still under training.

There are 21 persons in the first two batches and 16 of them were still active including Yang.

The up coming Tiangong / Shenzhou tasks would be charged by active members of batch 1 and 2 astronauts.

CNSA had made 4 task teams of 12 astronauts and all the other members were also listed in different alternative team.

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As we know, commonly the task team members could be assigned to more than one task, and could also be listed alternative to another team.


The 21-persons list of the first and second batch of the People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (Chinese: 中国人民解放军航天员大队; PLAAC) could be found here(in Chinese, the English version doesn't have the list):

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The list shows all the 16 active and 5 retired members. Yang is listed 'active'.

 

[A.Man]

Shenzhou-12 Boosters landing locations

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[caudaceus]

Shenzhou-12 Boosters landing locationsView attachment 73625

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Not shenzhou 12

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1406185112434143235

 

[Aniah]

Not shenzhou 12

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1406185112434143235

That's not good. Isn't that a big danger to civs?

 

[Richard Santos]

All Chinese launches from Inner Mongolia inevitably pose danger to civilians because the booster must overfly about 2000 km of land. Any boosters and 1st stages would be jettisoned during 1st few hundred Kms of the rocket’s flight and then fall roughly along the ground track of the booster. This is why most satellite launching facilities in the world are sited near the coast in a manner that allow efficient launch from that sites reach to water quickly without having to overfly populated areas.

A big risk is spent boosters normally tumble in flight and fall uncontrolled. So their possible zone of impact is huge and difficult to accurately predict. The parachute on this booster is actually an experiment to stop the booster from tumbling, and enhance control over the fall of spent boosters so their probably impact zone can be made much smaller and more accurately predictable to reduce risk to civilians.

Due to the location of the Hainan launch site, LM-5 lunches pose no threat to major civilian population centers.

 

[Temstar]

That's not good. Isn't that a big danger to civs?

Back in cold war 1.0 when the older inland launch complexes were built China wasn't nearly as densely developed as she is today. Risk calculations were different in those days. Instead of falling boosters the number one worry was

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.

Clearly the chances of that happening these days are much reduced thanks to the increasing strength of PLAN and PLAAF, and with the country more densely developed the chances of spent booster falling on populated area is higher. Hence why Wenchang was built (among other reasons).

 

[Aniah]

Back in cold war 1.0 when the older inland launch complexes were built China wasn't nearly as densely developed as she is today. Risk calculations were different in those days. Instead of falling boosters the number one worry was

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.

Clearly the chances of that happening these days are much reduced thanks to the increasing strength of PLAN and PLAAF, and with the country more densely developed the chances of spent booster falling on populated area is higher. Hence why Wenchang was built (among other reasons).

I was speaking more of is this something China could've prevented or is this out of their hands because that thing landed on a civilian road and you can bet that the western media is about to attack China any moments now.

 

[antiterror13]

It wasn’t even that long ago web military photo reconnaissance satellites literally took pictures on film, develop the film on board, then scan the film and the transmitter the images back to earth

really? what era was it?

I thought the satellites would drop the capsules of films to the ocean and retrieved by the US military

 

[jon88]

I was speaking more of is this something China could've prevented or is this out of their hands because that thing landed on a civilian road and you can bet that the western media is about to attack China any moments now.

I don't think anybody can do anything about it. Boosters from Baikanour consistantly fall on Mongolian soil. Since Mongolia is so big and have only 2 million population, it is not a big problem. I think gradually and if global politics are less hostile, launch sites will move more to the eastern coast of rocket launching countries. Landlock countries or countries without an eastern coastline will have a problem.

 

[Temstar]

I don't think anybody can do anything about it. Boosters from Baikanour consistantly fall on Mongolian soil. Since Mongolia is so big and have only 2 million population, it is not a big problem. I think gradually and if global politics are less hostile, launch sites will move more to the eastern coast of rocket launching countries. Landlock countries or countries without an eastern coastline will have a problem.

Doesn't Israel get around this problem by launching west in the direction of Med and so end up in retrograde orbit?
Obviously you don't do this for fun, it comes with a lot of delta-V penalty.