China's Space Program News Thread

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In aerospace engineering, precision and accuracy are keys to successes ranging from processing tiny components to launching rockets and spacecraft. And Wang Yang stands out a precision and accuracy man who has achieved a zero-error production for 30 years with his lathe.

Wang is now the chief of the lathe workshop under the Third Institute of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation in Shenyang, in northeast China's Liaoning Province. With two tiny components, Wang explains to us how exacting and demanding precision and accuracy can be in his trade.

"Thickness is the key to quality of this component. Its specified thickness is 0.3 millimeters with a margin of error for plus or minus 0.02 millimeters. This demands precision processing from us," says Wang Yang. The precision master further explains the precision. The 0.02-millimeter tolerance is about one third of the thickness of a thread of human hair. So any error can be problematic in the end.

"Once unqualified components were mounted to a rocket, the rocket would deviate from its trajectory. Deviation would doom and destroy our rocket," says Wang. For three decades he has been working in this workshop, Wang Yang has processed and manufactured components for missiles, carrier rockets, spacecrafts and moon-probe crafts. He himself has processed one of the 10 key components mounted to the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft.

"For all these years, I have focused on what I process to ensure all turn out to be qualified components," says Wang Yang.

 

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The CZ-7 (Long March-7) carrier rocket has equipped with a new power system more powerful than those of other carrier rockets in China.The CZ-7 rocket has a height of over 53 meters with a launching weight of nearly 600 tons. Though its appearance has no significant difference with China's other rockets, the length of its booster doubles those of others.

Besides, the internal power system of CZ-7 is completely upgraded with new propellant."Both the engine and the propellant of CZ-7 are using a combination of liquid oxygen and kerosene," said Wang Xiaojun, general director of CZ-7 carrier rocket from China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CASC).

The new propellant using liquid oxygen and kerosene can generate stronger impetus compared with current ones while being clean and environment-friendly as its burning only produce water and carbon dioxide. "Hainan is a fertile island in China and the Wenchang satellite launch center is also an important place, so the rockets that to be launched there need to be environment-friendly. Thus CZ-7 is fit for missions in Hainan," said Wang.

Meanwhile, there are still some problems to solve. As liquid oxygen is of very low temperature, in a warm and humid environment like Hainan, the surface of rocket will become wet when using the new propellant.

"The temperature of liquid oxygen is kept at minus 183 degrees Celsius. After filling it into the propellant, the low temperature together with the moist air will cause condensation and the rocket will be covered with dew, " said Wang. To deal with this problem, CZ-77 is the first waterproof rocket in China. It can be launched in moderate rain, according to its design.

 

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The chips on China's Beidou Satellite Navigation System have gone from small to smaller, settled at 40 nanometers for the time being and with 28 nanometers in sight. China has boasted independent intellectual property rights for these chips which are self-researched, self-designed and self-manufactured for key conceptions, technologies and parts of the chips.

During the 2016 satellite navigation conference in Changsha, China's Unicore Communications has shipped its 40-nanometer navigation module with this new chip in for a worldwide first. Module UM332 is a multi-system, multi-frequency, high-precision global satellite navigation module, which can also be mounted to light robots, unmanned aerial vehicles and intelligent self-drive cars. Thanks to its smallest size for the time being in the industry, lower production cost and power consumption, it is certainly in for a market competitiveness in the world.

"The navigation module used to be as big as a hand palm while it has now become so small. Therefore, we can embed it into more devices. First, we will use it in our UAVs and automobiles for mass-production so that we can bring such high-precision device into common people's life. Now, according to our research, we have completed the world's smallest high-precision receiver through the development and promotion of chip technology," says Hu Gang, general manager of Unicore Communications.

China's state guideline for the industry has prioritized breakthroughs in key technologies, of which chip-making tops all other development. In the longer run, it will be the trend of the industry to make smaller chips which consumes less energy and boasts of more mature technology.

"Now the mainstream of chips is 40 nanometers in the world. In the next stage, we are going to develop smaller chips, like the 28-nanometer chip. From the perspective of technology and performance, power consumption, size and cost of production will enable our chips to better compare with similar products by foreign chip-makers. Therefore, I think our products will be very competitive," says Zhou Ruxin, board chair of BDStar Navigation.

"We have made breakthroughs in all the key technologies. As the technology is always developing, our pursuit for better technology should never stop. Therefore, we will keep developing technologies based on the current ones. We hope that the Beidou System will be one of the most advanced systems in the world when it is completed," says Ran Chengqi, office chief for China Satellite Navigation Administration.

 

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China has held its 2016 satellite navigation conference and along with an exhibition and Wednesday's conference in Changsha has had the theme of "smart perception and smart intelligence". Gathering in central China are some 2,000 administrators, researchers and manufacturers representing the four major satellite navigation systems in the world. These well-known systems are GPS of the United States, GLONASS of Russia, Galileo of the European Union and Beidou of China.

On the sidelines of the conference, an exhibition is also held with the participation of researchers and manufacturers from over 150 institutes and enterprises to showcase their latest achievements in satellite navigation.

The conference participants have been told that the Beidou system has since last year formed its improved network with five new-generation navigation satellites and one backup satellite for regional services. The system has been improved on its reliability and functionality for a solid foundation for the Beidou to provide global services.

"We've planned to launch some 30 more satellites during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020) to form our global system. Eighteen of these satellites will be up in orbits before 2018 to enable services for the One Belt One Road initiative," says Ran Chengqi, office chief for the China Satellite Navigation Administration.

China has already started cooperation on the application of Beidou satellite navigation with Pakistan, Thailand, and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and League of Arab States.In-orbit verification and validation for the new Beidou inter-satellite linkage has already completed to enable the connectivity of the Beidou global network.

"It's all self-design, self-research and self-manufacture for key conceptions, technologies and parts for the inter-satellite linkage of the Beidou system, which therefore boasts of an independent intellectual property right of our own," says Yang Jun, a professor from the National University of Defense Technology.

Inter-satellite linkage is key to enabling remote satellites to keep in contact with controllers in China, to inter-connect all Beidou satellites into an in-orbit network, to keep individual satellite in precise orbital position in the formation of the entire network and to guarantee precision of satellite positioning and time-synchronization, so as to provide high-precision navigation positioning service and time service.

It's also learned that two specialized interference-proof chips have been used on the new Beidou satellites. The chips are independently developed by the Chinese National University of Defense Technology. These chips have materialized the Made-in-China formalization for core components of the Beidou system.

"These chips will make our interference-proof antennas into large-size signal purifiers which sift out malicious as well as unintentional interferences and which create a cleaner signal receiving environment. This will make sure that our 5G platform can provide effective navigational positioning under complicated circumstances in future," says Nie Junwei, a researcher from the Beidou Navigation Center of the National University of Defense Technology.

 

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it would be awesome if the chip is designed and manufactured with 14nm FinFET technology

 

[chinois49]

ZY-3 02, ÑuSat 1/2 (Aleph-1 1/2) launched (CZ 4b)

 

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ZY-3 02, ÑuSat 1/2 (Aleph-1 1/2) launched (CZ 4b)

The Ziyuan III-02 satellite is a survey satellite with a higher definition than the Ziyuan III-01 satellite, which was launched in January 2012. It cannot only take images from 500 kilometers in outer space, but it can also measure the height of objects.

"The higher definition not only helps to acquire the information of basic geographic surveying and mapping on scale 1:50,000, but it is also good for national basic geographic information and widespread use of data," said Cao Haiyi, chief designer of the Ziyuan III-02 satellite with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The Ziyuan III-02 will work with the Ziyuan III-01 in space to shorten the re-visit cycle to three days and greatly improve the speed of updating data.

"After the Ziyuan III-01 satellite was launched, it could basically accomplish the updating of basic satellites in over 90 percent of the areas once a year. But after the Ziyuan III-02 is launched, we can accomplish it in half a year," said Tang Xinming, deputy director of the Satellite Surveying and Mapping Application Center under China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.

 

[AndrewS]

Here's an interesting global problem

3.8 billion people in the world live in areas which are difficult to the connect to the internet.
A fleet of 180-4000 satellites using current technology to provide global internet access would cost up to $10 billion

On a purely commercial basis, it would be difficult to justify such a spend.

With low-cost reusable rockets and cheaper satellites, such a constellation would likely be profitable, particularly if given some level of government support given the strategic implications of such a network.

But of course, how many such satellite networks could be supported by such a customer base and the available satellite orbits?

Would it be a race to be first to do this?

 

[SinoSoldier]

Here's an interesting global problem

3.8 billion people in the world live in areas which are difficult to the connect to the internet.
A fleet of 180-4000 satellites using current technology to provide global internet access would cost up to $10 billion

On a purely commercial basis, it would be difficult to justify such a spend.

With low-cost reusable rockets and cheaper satellites, such a constellation would likely be profitable, particularly if given some level of government support given the strategic implications of such a network.

But of course, how many such satellite networks could be supported by such a customer base and the available satellite orbits?

Would it be a race to be first to do this?

Yes, but who would pay for these constellations and why would they?

 

[Equation]

It's no different than what Google and Facebook are trying to do with their internet solar plane to provide more internet connections to hard to reach and impoverish places.

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