China's Space Program News Thread

[taxiya]

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The space-X in-capsule suit makes the astronauts look like sanitation workers about to enter a city sewer to clean it.

I doubt it even serves any purpose at all. Inside suits from US (NASA), China and USSR/Russia all have some valves and stiffening rings. That means that they have some level of protection in case of depressurization accident. The SpaceX suit has nothing similar, nor anywhere that one can guess to be hidden.

 

[Richard Santos]

Yes, a pressure suit will inflate if the outside depressurizes. if there are no hard structure around the joints to ensure joint volume does not change when the joint is flexed, then the inside pressure will make the joints stiff, and inflated suited will not allow the occupant to bend at the waist, or flex his/her limbs at should, elbow, hip and knee joints.

so a suit with no hard joints is probably not useable as work suit in case of depressurization.

but it is possible the Space-X suit has an outer non-pressurized layer covering an inner pressure layer that has reinforcement around the joints to prevent interior pressure from making the joints stiff.

 

[taxiya]

Yes, a pressure suit will inflate if the outside depressurizes. if there are no hard structure around the joints to ensure joint volume does not change when the joint is flexed, then the inside pressure will make the joints stiff, and inflated suited will not allow the occupant to bend at the waist, or flex his/her limbs at should, elbow, hip and knee joints.

so a suit with no hard joints is probably not useable as work suit in case of depressurization.

but it is possible the Space-X suit has an outer non-pressurized layer covering an inner pressure layer that has reinforcement around the joints to prevent interior pressure from making the joints stiff.

It is almost impossible.

1. The joint between gloves and suits do not show any such stiffening structure.
2. The visor is just flip-flop type that does not have air seal. Even with the o-ring (the black lines), it won't be air-tight at all because the joint hinges.
3. There is no connection of gas to inflate.
4. Look at the suit on the table in the second photo which is totally flattened.

I think SpaceX has a different philosophy (as always) than NASA and Russia and China that the astronaut must be 100% confident in his spacecraft being 100% safe, for the impossible unforeseen accident, it is just an anomaly that will certainly be turned to a success by SpaceX fans.

 

[chinging]

Chinese chipset seems to work well enough on the moon and mars…..

just saying…..

While I believe that the Chinese space chips provider (e.g. CASA, Loongson) are becoming more and more competent, it seems that the Chinese spacecrafts are still using some imported chips (e.g. Microchip/ATMEL AT697 CPU used by the Chang’e-4 lander, Samsung K9F8G08U0M SLC Nand Flash used by the Zhurong rover).

 

[taxiya]

While I believe that the Chinese space chips provider (e.g. CASA, Loongson) are becoming more and more competent, it seems that the Chinese spacecrafts are still using some imported chips (e.g. Microchip/ATMEL AT697 CPU used by the Chang’e-4 lander, Samsung K9F8G08U0M SLC Nand Flash used by the Zhurong rover).

Can you share the source of your statement? It is hard (if it is possible at all) for outsiders to get component break-down lists of these two programs unless you are a circuit designer or component acquisition officer in the programs.

 

[chinging]

Can you share the source? It is hard (if it is possible at all) to get component break-down lists of these two programs.

Sure. The public information I gathered is as follows.

The heart of the controller was an ATMEL AT697F microprocessor.

The FPGAs, namely XQR2V3000-4CCG717, received the data from the payloads sensor heads, and provided UARTs for communications with the CPU.

[1] Yingzhuo Jia, Yongliao Zou, Jinsong Ping, Changbin Xue, Jun Yan, Yuanming Ning. The scientific objectives and payloads of Chang’E−4 mission. Planetary and Space Science, Volume 162, 1 November 2018, Pages 207-215.

为适应火星车轻小型化的需求，存储器阵列采用 2片3D叠封的NandFLASH芯片（如图3所示，叠封8片 K9F8G08U0M基片），每片容量64 Gbits，因此板载总物理容量为：64 Gb × 2 = 128 Gb = 16 GB。

[2] 徐勇, 贾阳, 郭坚, 赵蕾, 朱剑冰, 王翠莲, 范延芳, 佟玲. 火星车图像压缩存储系统与关键算法设计[J]. 深空探测学报(中英文）, 2020, 7(5): 458-465. doi: 10.15982/j.issn.2096-9287.2020.20200035.

 

[gelgoog]

The Russian space program is

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. It is seen by a large family of corrupt subcontractors as a a font of government largess and easy foreign currency. Often times external factors are used to explain what really are failures resulting from internal corruption.

the corruption of the Russian space program is also a good reason to expect very little from Russia in any large long term space exploration collaborations.

The problem with lack of space hardened semiconductors in Russia goes back from all the way from Soviet times. Just try reading about the lifetimes of the GLONASS satellites for example. The GLONASS satellites back then didn't last all that long and had to be replaced all the time. When the Soviet Union collapsed just by being several years without launching satellites the network degraded like heck.
When Russia put back the GLONASS satellite network they used imported components to go around that and have satellites with longer lifetimes. But the US sanctioned semiconductor components to the Russian space sector now they are having to develop their own.

If you want to talk about corruption just look at the US space program and how many failed programs it has had since the Shuttle came out.

This has nothing to do with corruption. The Russian market simply isn't that large it can develop mass production of semiconductors. The Russian semiconductor industry has had diminute investments precisely because of the market being so small. So nearly everything needs to be funded by the state. Semiconductor fabs are hugely expensive and the Russian market simply isn't large enough to pay off any investment in them. It will always be a loss leader but something they need to invest in to be self-sufficient.

 

[Richard Santos]

the corruption in this case is not expressed in Russian inability to develop radiation hardened chips, although there is very likely corruption in that too. The corruption in this case is expressed in the fact that the lack of radiation hardened chips is probably being used as an cover for slow pace of satellite manufacturing and launching, when the real cause is very likely endemic self-dealing, embezzlement and graft.

NASA’s multiple direction changes actually has nothing to do with corruption. It has everything to do with it being a arm of the administrative branch of government that has the weakest patronage, and is most easily abused for the purpose of political grandstanding, unmatched by funding resolve, by any administration.

consequently it suffers from fickle funding and fickle political direction, and the need to increase its meager political patronage by spreading its network of subcontractors to almost everything congressional district.

Of the major US government agencies responsible for large high tech procurements, NASA is without a doubt the cleanest and least corrupt. US DOE and particularly department of defense procurement vastly surpass NASA in their levels of corruption.

 

[SimaQian]

I dont know if this has been posted before. The climbing robotic arm for TianGong is really ingenious and from my previous experiences as electronics design engineer, this is very difficult to implement. This means the electrical (for power) and electronic (for control) lines are distributed throughout TG. The end effector(fingers of the robotic arm) wrist is brilliantly designed. I think this kind of robotic arm is only feasible in space not on earth applications. The longer the arm, the higher the weight therefore must need a solid foundation(the arm must be anchored to a solid base) for structural integrity. But in space, the weight issues are negligible. This is really a sample the ingenuity of Chinese engineering.

 

[ougoah]

the corruption in this case is not expressed in Russian inability to develop radiation hardened chips, although there is very likely corruption in that too. The corruption in this case is expressed in the fact that the lack of radiation hardened chips is probably being used as an cover for slow pace of satellite manufacturing and launching, when the real cause is very likely endemic self-dealing, embezzlement and graft.

While I'm sure there is some level of corruption in the Russian space field, like there would be in the Chinese and American ones, I don't think the lack of radiation hardened chips available (with sanctions in place for Russia) is their go to excuse like you have suggested. They literally don't have a choice in that matter unless they buy them from China which is an option they may have already looked into. Since China and the US have basically gone down this path, there is nothing for China to risk. It has no American strings attached anyway since CNSA don't use any US components worth mentioning and that can't be immediately replaced with a Chinese one if necessary. It just takes time to evaluate and verify suitability and work with Chinese partners to develop the specific chips they require.

There could be other reasons for "slow pace of satellite manufacturing and launching" and that's assuming the current Russian launch rate is "slow" and not a matter of funding or actual requirements. It's not a race about who launches more per year. Launch rate has everything to do with utility. China has a lot more space projects going on, military and commercial satellites with customers. Russia at the moment doesn't. Therefore it doesn't launch as much. If it did and the matter was entirely because of lack of chips, they can and probably will work with China on overcoming it as soon as possible. Russian domestic solution is unlikely to be delivered within time and makes less economic sense than buying them from China.

NASA’s multiple direction changes actually has nothing to do with corruption. It has everything to do with it being a arm of the administrative branch of government that has the weakest patronage, and is most easily abused for the purpose of political grandstanding, unmatched by funding resolve, by any administration.

consequently it suffers from fickle funding and fickle political direction, and the need to increase its meager political patronage by spreading its network of subcontractors to almost everything congressional district.

Of the major US government agencies responsible for large high tech procurements, NASA is without a doubt the cleanest and least corrupt. US DOE and particularly department of defense procurement vastly surpass NASA in their levels of corruption.

Very true and ironic there are so many illiterate observers who think and claim the opposite.