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

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation.
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

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation.
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

Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group China successfully launched the first of a new group of Yaogan satellites Friday to test technologies for a low Earth orbit constellation.
spacenews.com spacenews.com
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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
 

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