Chinese Space Program

NASA, ESA and Roscosmos need to have a very serious chat with whoever runs the PRC's space programme about making sure spent upper-stages don't go boom while in orbit.
 
NMaude said:
NASA, ESA and Roscosmos need to have a very serious chat with whoever runs the PRC's space programme about making sure spent upper-stages don't go boom while in orbit.
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Good luck with that. Reckless abandon seems to be pseudo communist chinese government policy these days.
 
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martinbayer said:
Good luck with that. Reckless abandon seems to be communist chinese government policy these days.
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If that's the case then the PRC is being grossly irresponsible as this will affect their own satellites too, has someone explained to the relevant Chinese officials what the Kessler syndrome is?

Edit: I meant Kessler syndrome not Kistler.
 
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NMaude said:
If that's the case then the PRC is being grossly irresponsible as this will affect their own satellites too, has someone explained to the relevant Chinese officials what the Kistler syndrome is?
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Assuming you're actually trying to address the Kessler Syndrome, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome, rather than the Kistler one, which I am completely unaware of, good question, but gross irresponsibility seems to be a pervasive thread/hallmark of Chinese policies and politics these days, so?
 
NMaude said:
I meant Kessler syndrome, I'm editing my previous post to reflect that.
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To honestly answer your question, I have no idea whatsoever whether anyone has explained to the relevant Chinese officials what the Kessler syndrome is, but my opinionated response above with respect to gross incompetence of Chinese policies and politics these days still stands :).
 

Earlier this year a new chinese standard was established to deal with the upper stage disposal to cut space debris, reduce collision risks, and limit orbital lifespans.


CASC reported during the previous launch (July 5th) that the launcher had been modified to make the upper stage safer:
"In this mission, the Long March 6 modified rocket optimized the passivation process of the final stage and improved the safety of the final stage on orbit"
But the next two launches broke up... And there seemingly wasn't any investigation into it. Or delay to fix the problem.
 
The PRC is so far behind in the rocket race currently it is unwilling to delay any launches. That I understand. I just do not know why their passivation standards/equipment were so problematic in the first place. If you intend to orbit tens of thousands of satellites and have a goal of being the dominant space power, one would think collision mitigation would be as much your priority as anyone else’s.
 
Josh_TN said:
That I understand. I just do not know why their passivation standards/equipment were so problematic in the first place.
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The people responsible in China's space-programme may've not got the message. For example when the PLA carried out its' ASAT test in 2007 the people who were responsible were taken aback and surprised by the uproar the test caused and the international responses to it, they were basically clueless in how they expected any international response to be.
 
Oh I'm pretty sure they are paying attention, silly to think otherwise. Just look at the progress made within the past two decades alone.
I'm thinking it's more a case 'if others can do so previously why can't we' (same with other nation states wanting to build up capabilities 'we' don't want them to !) :)
 
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I do wonder though if that breakup/debris cloud was intended to hide something else being deployed.
 
Grey Havoc said:
I do wonder though if that breakup/debris cloud was intended to hide something else being deployed.
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I cannot imagine that would be effective now adays, unless it was tiny. There are something like 600 “apertures” run by the USSF at this point, and if anything the break up attracted more attention.
 
But, how sure are we that at least some of them have not being compromised in some manner by the Chinese? Also, what ever might have been deployed may have its own organic stealth systems.
 
Grey Havoc said:
But, how sure are we that at least some of them have not being compromised in some manner by the Chinese? Also, what ever might have been deployed may have its own organic stealth systems.
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Hey, they may have tractor beams and deflector shields for all I know. I would just say from what I know in open source, hiding objects of any significant size in space, especially during a launch event, is hard. And I would imagine blowing your rocket stage up is only going to focus a lot more attention on the orbit in question as USSF attempts to create tracks for as many of the smallest objects its sensors can manage before they disperse. I bet a lot of radars focused on that cloud intensity for hours or days on a global scale.
 
YG-43 group 1 new technology tests satellites of a LEO Constellation System. Likely PLA "Proliferated spy constellation/Starshield" test sats
spacenews.com

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group

HELSINKI — China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation. A Long March 4B rocket lifted off from Xichang …
spacenews.com spacenews.com
 
www.spacedaily.com

Autonomous mini robot captures historic photo on Lunar Far Side

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Aug 15, 2024 - A stunning image recently released by the China National Space Administration has captivated audiences, showing the desolate landscape of the far side of the moon. The photograph, taken after China'
www.spacedaily.com
 
luritie said:
YG-43 group 1 new technology tests satellites of a LEO Constellation System. Likely PLA "Proliferated spy constellation/Starshield" test sats
spacenews.com

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group

HELSINKI — China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation. A Long March 4B rocket lifted off from Xichang …
spacenews.com spacenews.com
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First launch of a CZ4B from Xichang and First use of a 4.2m fairing on a CZ4 series launcher.
Interesting that SAST/CASC is still improving/spending R&D on these nearly 35 years old launchers.

Talking about constellations, apparently the first Guowang launch is still planned for H2 2024 from one of the Hainan commercial pads, according to a paper that released yesterday. There aren't many possibilities for that, it'll likely either be the first CZ-12 launch from Pad#2 or a CZ-8 from Pad#1

mp.weixin.qq.com

《中国航天》2024年第6期整刊速览︱商业航天产业观察专刊

mp.weixin.qq.com mp.weixin.qq.com

(Also included is the regular Starship post-launch analysis, courtesy of CASC and Beijing's Long March development institute, these always have good telemetry recording, you can tell they're taking notes...)
 
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luritie said:
YG-43 group 1 new technology tests satellites of a LEO Constellation System. Likely PLA "Proliferated spy constellation/Starshield" test sats
spacenews.com

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group

HELSINKI — China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation. A Long March 4B rocket lifted off from Xichang …
spacenews.com spacenews.com
Click to expand...
9 sats. Same orbit as YG35/36/39/42.
IMG_1967.jpeg
 
1724599135293.jpeg 1724599143876.jpeg 1724599149865.jpeg

A test version of the new Long March 8 variant CZ-8A is currently being stacked on Hainan's first commercial pad.

This new variant has a wider fairing (4.2->5.2m) and a wider (3.35m) and more powerful hydrogen-oxygen second stage, different from the "standard" 3.0m hydrolox stages that have been used on Long March 3,7A and 8 since the 90s. Payload capacity to SSO is improved from 5 tons to 7 tons.

A paper describing the Long March 8 familly of launchers can be found here.

This says that it will be launched on September 2 but it is more likely to be a rehearsal since it lacks side boosters, the launch will more likely happen in December.

This will be the first launch from Wenchang's 1st Commercial Pad, this pad is seemingly dedicated for commercial launches of the CZ-8 and CZ-8A, unlike the second which is shared over 19 launchers, both from SOE and Private companies.

This launcher familly is supposed to be CALT's (one of the two main subsidiaries of CASC) main commercial LEO and SSO launcher, while they abandonned old plans to reuse the CZ-8 a few years ago, they still plan to launch 50 CZ-8 a year , the ramp up has yet to come, so far 3 CZ-8 have been launched in 4 years, and none of the 6 CZ-8 planned for the second half of 2024 have been launched so far.

Generally speaking, China's space launch industry is behind its goals for 2024, with only 37 launches (w/ 1 failure, and 1 partial failure that was salvaged, with a breakdown of 27 for CALT+SAST and 10 for Commercial companies) out of a goal of 100 launches for the year (with a breakdown of 70 for CALT+SAST and 30 for Commercial companies); for comparison, in 2023 at the same date, there were also 37 launches (26 CALT+SAST, 11 commercial) with no failures, but with a goal of 70 launches.
 
What has prevented the 100 goal from being reached? Was more expected from private companies? It seems like a wave of new rockets will launch next year.
 
Josh_TN said:
What has prevented the 100 goal from being reached? Was more expected from private companies? It seems like a wave of new rockets will launch next year.
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If I had to make some guesses

-Commercial companies definitely underperformed and many have revised their goals down, they are facing the tough challenge of ramping up their existing small/small-medium launchers and developping medium-heavy ones, for exemple, the maritime space port of Haiyang, which provides barges for commercial launch providers, have revised their goal from 10 launches in H2 2024 to only 2-3: 1 Ceres-1S; 1 Jielong-3 and maybe 1 Gravity-1, while their companies planned 3-4; 4 and 2 respectively. Another example may be Landspace, which is trying to both upgrade and industrialise their Zhuque 2 medium launcher, launch a stratospheric VTVL demonstrator (something that has been delayed by a couple of months) and develop their Zhuque 3 heavy launcher; Their 3 launches in 2022-23 were a first batch of an early, underperforming version.

-The Hainan commercial pads seem to have taken longer than planned to become operational, both inaugural launches were planned for May and June, but by these dates various tests were still happening there, now the inaugural launches are planned for September and December.

-The YZ-1 upper stage failure in march may have thrown a wrench in some Long March launches that used them, a handful of Long March launches had used them in H2 2023.

-The long delayed constellations may have been delayed within the year, these promised about a dozen launches through the year.

Also... There are a lot of chinese private satellite operators, many minor ones too, I wouldn't be surprised if some payloads and their companies just vanished over time... The chinese satellite market is confusing.

The various sacking and reshufling that have been happening at the management of CASC and other missile manufacturer may have had an impact, but I would tend to believe their impact on day to day operations would have been small on the order of months.
 
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Chutian-001 VLEO satellite has started its decent from an initial orbit altitude of ~531 km. It is the first of a planned constellation of 300 satellites. A satellite of a similar purpose, Qiankun-1 launched into an orbit at an altitude of 485 km is now at altitude of 166 km. Shiyan-25 is also testing new earth observation technologies in a VLEO at 285km altitude
GVwFTHDWQAAJFJN.png
 
luritie said:
YG-43 group 1 new technology tests satellites of a LEO Constellation System. Likely PLA "Proliferated spy constellation/Starshield" test sats
spacenews.com

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group

HELSINKI — China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation. A Long March 4B rocket lifted off from Xichang …
spacenews.com spacenews.com
Click to expand...
Launch of 6 new YG-43 Group 2 prototype satellites. A total of 100 satellites were launched into this orbit since 2017.
Capture.PNG
 
Reports that the wenchang space center has been lightly damaged by the Yagi Typhoon, this will likely delay the first launches from the new commercial pads planned for this month. Hopefully not the launch of the Tianzhou ressuply mission next month.

Gust of up to 175 mph (281 km/h) were recorded at the Wenchang Space Center
1725729643210.png
https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5076088420569282
""The Vice Mayor of Wenchang City, Hainan Province, Wei Bo, stated at a press conference held by the Typhoon "Yagi" Emergency Command that #TyphoonYagi poses a serious threat to the facilities and equipment of the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site. However, the risk is currently under control, and post-disaster emergency recovery work is proceeding in an orderly manner. [Web link]" "

Edit: overview of the damage https://content-static.cctvnews.cct...track_id=82efe061-086b-4dc0-b2bb-60db2b0d8011
https://twitter.com/x/status/1832627306755772907
View: https://x.com/kelvin61942434/status/1832627306755772907
 
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science.slashdot.org

China To Launch Mars-Sampling Mission In 2028 - Slashdot

"China is on track to launch its Tianwen-3 mission to Mars in 2028, two years earlier than previously planned," writes the South China Morning Post, a change that one space policy research believes "suggests a rising confidence by China in its ability to get the technology right for the complex...
science.slashdot.org
 
A few months after SAST, Landspace has demonstrated a 10km VTVL test with its Zhuque-3 prototype, this test included, the first time for a chinese company and 3rd time outside of SpaceX and Blue Origin, a high altitude restart of its main engine for landing.

Official video:



Full video of the flight, engine restart can be seen at 02:25 :

【8K】手动跟踪蓝箭航天VTVL一镜到底_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

我愿称之为国内最帅高空二次点火！0.8马赫的手动跟踪也不难嘛，更换了8K源，看起来更爽了, 视频播放量 13887、弹幕量 71、点赞数 709、投硬币枚数 227、收藏人数 209、转发人数 190, 视频作者 黑白猫名字被占用, 作者简介 沉迷观看火箭发射不能自拔的生态摄影师，偶尔拍风景。。。。商务合作请私信，相关视频：央妈介绍朱雀三号10公里回收试验时，展示的朱雀三号完全体回收的动画演示，猎鹰9号回收和蓝箭航天回收对比，牛了，给我坐上真火箭了？！【8K全景视角】，圆满成功！我国重复使用运载火箭最大规模垂直起降飞行试验，蓝箭航天丨2024/09/11...
www.bilibili.com www.bilibili.com

Flight of 200.7s, the engine first fired for 113s then shut down until reaching an apogee of 10,002m, the engine reignited at 4,640m altitude on descent while the rocket was going at Mach 0.8, the landing zone was 3.2km from the launch pad, the landing accuracy was 1.7m and the landing speed was 1.65 m/s, the landing mass was 35t
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Do note that this always stayed subsonic.
The rocket is 3.35m in diameter by 18.3m tall and has a lift off mass of 68t, it is equipped with an improved TQ-12 engine of 80tf thrust capable of throttling from 45% to 111% and of relighting several times.
Click to expand...

Landspace still aims to launch its Zhuque 3 heavy launcher in 2025. They don't plan any further test of this particular demonstrator, CASC-SAST and Deep Blue Aerospace are however planning to demonstrate suborbital flight profile (75km to 100km altitude) in the following months
 

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