China's Space Program News Thread

[T-U-P]

thanks this is just what I was looking for, I've seen bits and pieces but here is the entire ''return to earth'' process. it's sad that 15 day mission is over. wang ya ping is the most popular female for all Chinese school kids now i saw reports saying this is the last manned mission to tiangong-1 and that it's designed purpose has been fulfilled. what are they going to do with tiangong-1 now? it seems to be a waste. they should continue to sent astronauts to tiangong-1 for training. yang li wei must be dying to go up one more time.

I think we've talked about this before in this thread, but Tiangong-1 was only designed to run for 2 years (sent up in 2011), probably in terms of resources on board. So they are just gonna let it deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere.

 

[mzyw]

Don't worry according to the state media the next lab tiangang2 will be launches around 2015, with new generation of SZ7 and 5 rocket and a space station built by 2020.

 

[Quickie]

I think we've talked about this before in this thread, but Tiangong-1 was only designed to run for 2 years (sent up in 2011), probably in terms of resources on board. So they are just gonna let it deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere.

That's correct. Also, the Tiangong-1 needs to be deorbited safely into unhabited area probably in the ocean while Tiangong-1, or at least its altitude control systems, is still in working condition.

 

[Quickie]

I was thinking maybe a rough and dirty estimation by finding out the length of the Tiangong +SZ10, then finding out the distance that they have moved during 1/36th of a second by measuring their subsequent locations on the exposed photo.

Dividing that distance by 1/36th second would give a good idea of speed. Of course the error margin would be quite large as the T+sz10 is just a smudge on the photo. But I think thir orbiting speed is public data anyway.

edit the details are here: Hydrogen-alpha solar transit of Shenzhou-10 module docked to Tiangong-1, taken from Southern France on June 17th 2013 at 12h34min24s UT.
Transit duration: 0.46s. Distance to observer: 368 km. Speed in orbit: 7.4km/s (26500 km/h or 16500 mph).

My own estimation via pic is low at 20700Km/h

The high resolution photos and info is here:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I google a bit to check the figures. At 7.4 km/s, the altitude should be 1000 km.

I wonder why there's such a big difference between Engineer's calculated value of 8 sec and the above 0.46 sec for the transit duration. Including the earth's rotation into the calculation would only increase the transit duration.

 

[escobar]

SZ-10's reentry module was handed over to its designers for further study.

[video=youtube;mSPJvIZ4WgE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSPJvIZ4WgE#t=0s[/video]

Ceremony held to open re-entry capsule

[video=youtube;0KPgdwoheOE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KPgdwoheOE#t=0s[/video]

 

[no_name]

I google a bit to check the figures. At 7.4 km/s, the altitude should be 1000 km.

I wonder why there's such a big difference between Engineer's calculated value of 8 sec and the above 0.46 sec for the transit duration. Including the earth's rotation into the calculation would only increase the transit duration.

The tiangong's figure is given here:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

perigee height 355km
apogee height 365km so pretty much a circular orbit with respect to centre of earth.

15.6949 rev per day -> 91.7mins per orbit.

Even if taking orbit inclination and earth's rotation into account, it should still not be that different. Maybe the photographer's figure is wrong, or the way we're calculating it is not right.

 

[Quickie]

Using this calculator,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, the figures come out to be:

365km, 7.69245 km/s
355km, 7.69816 km/s



The figures given in the website: 368km, 7.4 km/s is definitely wrong.

Should be: 368km, 7.69074 km/s.

 

[no_name]

The video lessons given in real time in space by the taikonauts to school students on the ground indirectly demonstrated robustness of space based high capacity communication. During the 40 min class the Tiangong would have gone half way around the earth and would have required relaying of signals.

 

[Quickie]

This wasn't possible as recent as the Shenzhou-7 spacewalk. The Tianlian satellites were only put in place only after that mission.

 

[danielchin]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

CZ-5 Fairing jettison test.