China's Space Program News Thread

[AssassinsMace]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Is there a difference between auto, manual, and remote? By the computer animation of the Shenzhou 8 and Tiangong 1, it looks like a lot of automated communication between the two vehicles.

 

[bladerunner]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Perhaps the writer of the article "Quickie" got his info from got carried away.

 

[Quickie]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Is there a difference between auto, manual, and remote? By the computer animation of the Shenzhou 8 and Tiangong 1, it looks like a lot of automated communication between the two vehicles.

Perhaps the writer of the article "Quickie" got his info from got carried away.

Probably there's only the degree of automation. In the case of the ATV-2, the hands-off is at the 1 m distance. For the Shenzhou 8, the automated procedure started at less than 50 km away.

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The ISS crew will begin taking official distance measurements on ATV-2 once the vehicle passes inside the 20 meter mark. At 1 meter distance, the ISS crew will go “hands off” and let the ATV-2 perform its final docking sequence.

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When Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1 are less than 50 kilometers from each other, an automatic procedure takes over.

From now on, Shenzhou-8 responds automatically to information provided by the sensory equipment onboard both vehicles.

 

[Centrist]

Re: china manned space - news and views

japan has been sending unmanned supply ships to the ISS, if japan doesn't know how to dock, then how could they do it?

Japan's HTv is grabbed by the ISSs robotic arm. The arm then docks the craft with the station

 

[AssassinsMace]

Re: china manned space - news and views

I was watching the youtube video of the ATV-2 docking and the footage was speed up. At that speed it looked around the same as the Shenzhou 8 docking.

 

[LesAdieux]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Japan's HTv is grabbed by the ISSs robotic arm. The arm then docks the craft with the station

didn't know that, haha, thx

 

[Quickie]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Come to think of it, manual docking actually means "crew-attended docking". The actual dockings will always be computer controlled and it'll always be monitored by the crews, if there're any of them in the spacecrafts, as an additional measure. The Shenzhou 8 - Tianggong 1 docking is different in that there's no crews to attend to it during the automated process. So, as a process there's not much of a difference, save for the fact that no nation have ever done a docking without crews around in the spacecraft before this.

 

[delft]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Docking should always be automatic, of course. But if something goes wrong the crew must be well trained for the manual procedure. Think of those tens of thousands of pilots training for a wheels-up landing. If it is necessary and it goes as well as recently in Warsaw that effort was clearly not wasted.

 

[Centrist]

Re: china manned space - news and views

I am somewhat confused. China has announced that it's docking system is domestically developed but simultaneously is compatible with the Russian APAS system.

Is is possible that the mechanics of the system are identical (they do look identical) but the tracking system/software/optics were developed domestically?

 

[bladerunner]

Re: china manned space - news and views

Docking should always be automatic, of course. But if something goes wrong the crew must be well trained for the manual procedure. Think of those tens of thousands of pilots training for a wheels-up landing. If it is necessary and it goes as well as recently in Warsaw that effort was clearly not wasted.

Is there any logical reason why they chose not to send a manned module