China's Space Program News Thread

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escobar

escobar

Brigadier
Global satellite network planned to boost internet
China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, the nation's largest missile developer, plans to build a space-based information network that will provide global coverage.
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Liu Shiquan, deputy general manager of the State-owned space and defense giant, said on Monday the company will put 156 communications satellites into low Earth orbit, at an altitude of 160 to 2,000 km. Each satellite of the network will be able to transmit 500 mega-bytes of data per second.

"We will launch a satellite this year to demonstrate the technologies for the Hongyun Project. Before 2019, four satellites will have been put into space to conduct trial operations. The rest will follow in 2019 and 2020, ensuring that the whole network will be built before 2021," he said at the Second China Commercial Aerospace Forumin Wuhan, Hubei province.

"When the Hongyun system becomes operational, users around the world will be able to connect with broadband internet anytime and anywhere, even from on board an aircraft or a ship or in a remote area," Liu said.

"The prospect that the Hongyun satellites will operate in low Earth orbit will give them a lower probability of data transmission delays," he said. "That will strongly facilitate users' access to the internet around the globe."

In addition to the Hongyun system, Liu said, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp has begun developing a reusable combined-powered spacecraft for commercial space activities that it is expected to be put to service after 2030.
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Lethe

Lethe

Captain
Check out this exercise in Sinophobia:

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China’s first space station is expected to come crashing down to Earth next year, fuelling concerns that Chinese space authorities have lost control of the 8.5-tonne module.

The announcement appeared to confirm
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that China had lost control of the 10.4m-long module after it suffered some kind of technical or mechanical failure.

Jonathan McDowell, renowned Harvard astrophysicist and space industry enthusiast, said the announcement suggested
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had lost control of the station and that it would re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere “naturally.”

If this is the case, it would be impossible to predict where the debris from the space station will land.

“You really can’t steer these things,” he said. “Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won’t know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it’s going to come down. Not knowing when it’s going to come down translates as not knowing where its going to come down.”

McDowell said a slight change in atmospheric conditions could nudge the landing site “from one continent to the next”.
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Lethe

Lethe

Captain
I agree that the article is trying to make something out of nothing. You could read it simply as ignorant sensationalism, but I read it as tapping into widely-held anti-China narratives i.e. the message/tone of the article is "look how they can't do anything right". That the article somehow manages to avoid mentioning the launch of Tiangong-2 rather cements that impression.
 
I

Iron Man

Major
Registered Member
Hmm, doesn't the average station get de-orbited in a manual and controlled fashion? This article makes it sound like China has no ability to choose even roughly where TG-1 is going to land next year.
 
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