China's Space Program News Thread

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iantsai

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Does anyone know of the nature of these:

Inter-planetary probe project
Outer Solar system probe project

I believe there was a pair called Interstellar Express, but did this probe get split into two mission profiles now?

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I think one is for crewed ship and one for unmanned vessel.
 

Temstar

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An integral solid rocket booster developed by China for engineering application completed a test run at the Fourth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation on Tuesday.

With a thrust of 500 tonnes, the booster is the most powerful of its kind in the world, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.
The booster, which is 3.5 meters in diameter, uses technologies, such as a high-performance fibrous composite shell and an extra-large nozzle, which puts its overall performance reach at the world's leading level.

The success of the test run exemplifies China's improved solid carriers capacity. The booster will support the future development of heavy-lift carrier rocket technology.

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the booster is the most powerful of its kind in the world
If you're wondering, "its kind" refers to the fact that this is a carbon fibre casing solid fuel rocket motor. The much bigger SRBs you're imagining like the Shuttle SRB, SLS SRB, Titan IV SRB all of those use steel casing. In comparison the
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is less than half the diameter of this beast and only 40% of the thrust.

Carbon fibre is obviously much lighter than steel, but while steel is uniformly strong in every direction carbon fibre is only strong in the direction of the fibre, so the trick is to wound up the fibre in such a way that it can resist being stretched in multiple directions. The ability to do this on a 3.5m diameter scale is impressive.

Space program aside, I should also point out that just about all ballistic missiles use solid rocket motor. Having your rocket stages being lighter (particularly the 2nd stage) would all else equal result in a lot more range. DF-41 is 2.25m in diameter while DF-5 (liquid fuelled) is 3.25m in diameter. A 3.5m diameter ICBM using this motor as the second stage would be a monster of a rocket and can throw a huge amount of payload into a suborbital trajectory, or as per the news in recent days a huge amount of payload to low parking orbit.
 

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
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If you're wondering, "its kind" refers to the fact that this is a carbon fibre casing solid fuel rocket motor. The much bigger SRBs you're imagining like the Shuttle SRB, SLS SRB, Titan IV SRB all of those use steel casing. In comparison the
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is less than half the diameter of this beast and only 40% of the thrust.

Carbon fibre is obviously much lighter than steel, but while steel is uniformly strong in every direction carbon fibre is only strong in the direction of the fibre, so the trick is to wound up the fibre in such a way that it can resist being stretched in multiple directions. The ability to do this on a 3.5m diameter scale is impressive.

Space program aside, I should also point out that just about all ballistic missiles use solid rocket motor. Having your rocket stages being lighter (particularly the 2nd stage) would all else equal result in a lot more range. DF-41 is 2.25m in diameter while DF-5 (liquid fuelled) is 3.25m in diameter. A 3.5m diameter ICBM using this motor as the second stage would be a monster of a rocket and can throw a huge amount of payload into a suborbital trajectory, or as per the news in recent days a huge amount of payload to low parking orbit.
Great post, but the DF-41 is 2m, not 2.25m.
 

by78

General
A few more images of the monolithic solid rocket motor test article. The last image shows the meeting celebrating its successful ground test firing.

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51609160533_f53825d340_o.jpg
51608115127_f275f4fbc6_o.jpg

51608115052_e3781f3dba_o.jpg
 

Temstar

Brigadier
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A few more images of the monolithic solid rocket motor test article. The last image shows the meeting celebrating its successful ground test firing.

51609819675_c6fb7d37f2_o.jpg
51609160533_f53825d340_o.jpg
51608115127_f275f4fbc6_o.jpg

51608115052_e3781f3dba_o.jpg
This thing is very nearly as fat as the space shuttle / SLS SRBs, and that's constructed in segments out of steel sections. I've seen a video of the fuel being poured into the SRB segments and it looks a lot like pouring concrete and waiting for it to set. I wonder how they they fill up this fat boy. Turn it over and pour through the nozzle vs doing it from the top and apply the dome later?
 

BoraTas

Captain
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This thing is very nearly as fat as the space shuttle / SLS SRBs, and that's constructed in segments out of steel sections. I've seen a video of the fuel being poured into the SRB segments and it looks a lot like pouring concrete and waiting for it to set. I wonder how they they fill up this fat boy. Turn it over and pour through the nozzle vs doing it from the top and apply the dome later?
I dug the news on this engine a little bit:
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It seems it has 150 tons of propellant in total. The entirety of the engine shouldn't be heavier than 190 tons in total. This means its N.S/kg is around 3090. Insane! For example, the SRB on the new SLS achieves 2780.
 

taxiya

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I dug the news on this engine a little bit:
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It seems it has 150 tons of propellant in total. The entirety of the engine shouldn't be heavier than 190 tons in total. This means its N.S/kg is around 3090. Insane! For example, the SRB on the new SLS achieves 2780.
by78's photo shows >2500N.S/10kg (high altitude) which would be 25000N.S/kg.

It is almost impossible that the presentation slide is wrong by typo, mistakenly typed 10kg instead of kg. But it would be insane that the thing is 8 times better than SRB. So, do I miss something?

A few more images of the monolithic solid rocket motor test article. The last image shows the meeting celebrating its successful ground test firing.

51608115127_f275f4fbc6_o.jpg
 
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