China's Space Program News Thread

[danielchin]

the world first reusable "testing" booster (to save the costs of testing). It didn't say if the boosters used in actual launch will be reusable or not.

 

[delft]

just reusable test booster.
From the article:
"The United States and Russia have done such test, but did not consider using reusable."
"The cost of test booster is quite high"
"Because of test cost and production cycle considerations. It is required that test booster be recoverable and reusable. Otherwise it would be very wasteful"
"If the trial is not successful, and the test booster can not be reused, this would neither meets the test goal and would missed development milestone, the consequences could be disastrous."
"May 31, the test begin formally, the booster separated beautiful to a predetermined position, and in good condition. The test obtained a number of important parameters for the booster separation process and laid a solid foundation for the successful take-off of the Long March V rocket"

This must might mean that the liquid fueled boosters are to be reusable. It doesn't make sense to design for reusability only during testing.
The reusable Space Shuttle boosters used solid fuel.
The first stage of the European Ariane 1 rocket was designed to be reusable, but that was not immediately implemented. The primary use of the Ariane family is the launching of telecom satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbits and for that case a parachute system for the first stage was designed and built. The actual test of the system took place during the 11th launch of an Ariane 1, that of the spacecraft Giotto to the comet Halley on 2 July 1985. The trajectory of the rocket was different from that when launching towards a GTO and the dynamic pressure on the parachute became much higher than in the design case and the anchor of the parachute was pulled out of the rocket. The system was then abandoned.
I do not know about reusability of Russian rockets. But as these generally impact on land it might not be practicable. After all perfectly a reusable rocket far from a road or railway and too heavy to lift by helicopter is still useless.

 

[Engineer]

Is this a hologram?!

 

[blacklist]

Is this a hologram?!

seem like projector on plastic medium...

 

[escobar]

VRSS-1 being tested at JSLC. Launch planned for September 29, 0412UTC

 

[JsCh]

This must might mean that the liquid fueled boosters are to be reusable. It doesn't make sense to design for reusability only during testing.
The reusable Space Shuttle boosters used solid fuel.
The first stage of the European Ariane 1 rocket was designed to be reusable, but that was not immediately implemented. The primary use of the Ariane family is the launching of telecom satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbits and for that case a parachute system for the first stage was designed and built. The actual test of the system took place during the 11th launch of an Ariane 1, that of the spacecraft Giotto to the comet Halley on 2 July 1985. The trajectory of the rocket was different from that when launching towards a GTO and the dynamic pressure on the parachute became much higher than in the design case and the anchor of the parachute was pulled out of the rocket. The system was then abandoned.
I do not know about reusability of Russian rockets. But as these generally impact on land it might not be practicable. After all perfectly a reusable rocket far from a road or railway and too heavy to lift by helicopter is still useless.

The article said that the test booster is reusable, it did not mentioned anything about the actual booster being reusable.
Recoverable and reusable engine is listed as one of the long term research goal.
We can see the evidence for that since the booster use the new YF-100 engine, and one of its design criteria is reusability (although not very unusual for LOX/kerosene engine, so not a strong evidence).
Therefore you are probably right that the induction of reusable test booster is because it is part of the step leading to that goal.
The hard part is recoverable and rumours has it that there are competing design for that function and that they have not yet settle on a decision on which research direction to go.

 

[escobar]

Compass M5 and M6 sat have been launched with success.

 

[escobar]

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China has launched a new pair of navigation satellites today to upgrade its satellite navigation constellation. The launch of the Compass-M5 and Compass-M6 satellites took place at 19:10UTC on Tuesday from the LC2 launch complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, using the powerful Long March-3B/E (Chang Zheng-3B/E).

Developed from the DFH-3B satellite platform, the Compass-M satellites are deployed in 21500~24100 km, 55 degrees inclination intermediate circular orbits.

China has developed two models for Compass-M satellites. The two satellites that where launched today are based on DFH-3B bus and are equipped with an apogee propulsion system for final orbit insertion. The second model is not equipped with an apogee propulsion system and is completely different from DFH-3 bus. Still under development, this model will not fly until the second construction phase of the Compass constellation starts.

...

The satellites transmit signals on the: 1195.14-1219.14MHz, 1256.52-1280.52MHz, 1559.05-1563.15MHz and 1587.69-1591.79MHz, carrier frequencies.

The previous double Beidou-2 ‘Compass’ launch took place on April 29th, 2011, when the Chang Zheng-3B/E (Y14) orbited the ‘Compass-M3′ (38250 2012-018A) and ‘Compass-M4′ (38251 2012-018B) satellites.

DFH-3B is an updated version of DFH-3 bus, a communications satellite bus whose capability is between high and medium ones. It adopts hexahedral structure, consisting of propulsion, service and communication modules, communication antennas and solar arrays and adopts 3-axis stabilized attitude control. Its dimensions are 2200mm × 2000mm × 3100mm, and its mass is 3,800 kg with a payload mass of 400 kg to 450 kg.

This satellite bus is applicable to communications and navigation satellites and deep space probes through adaptive modification...

 

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