China's Space Program Thread II

[Dante80]

This quora answer explains it a lot better than I did.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[tacoburger]

Any updates on the progress on making long march 8 reusable?

 

[Taiban]

T

Here's a question. Why aren't launches done from the Tibet-Qinghai plateau region? Then you've already got the first 4-5km of ascent covered. Must yield some some cost saving?

The payload launch capability reduces with altitude. An aircraft which normally can carry 70 tons from sea level can carry 20-30 tons from higher altitude

 

[by78]

T

The payload launch capability reduces with altitude. An aircraft which normally can carry 70 tons from sea level can carry 20-30 tons from higher altitude

You need to explain this further. Why did you compare rockets, which are almost always non-air-breathing and without airfoils, with air-breathing aircraft? How does a rocket's payload capacity decrease with altitude? What factors make this true?

 

[by78]

A procurement document for an experimental cabin to carry out in vitro growth of and experiments on mammalian cells onboard the Chinese space station.

 

[by78]

An iodine electric thruster developed by

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

(纳飞卫星动力科技有限公司). It recently completed a test ignition that lasted 109+ minutes. Thrust is around two milli-newtons and is suitable for small satellites.

 

[by78]

An illustration from an academic paper on using a mother satellite and its child satellites to conduct in-orbit servicing and/or de-orbiting of satellites. Basically, a mother satellite carrying several smaller child satellites approaches a target satellite from a parallel orbit and then releases the child satellites, which then maneuver into an orbit around the target satellite. From there, the mother satellite directs and cooperates with child satellites to carry out servicing or de-orbiting of the target satellite.

 

[by78]

High-resolution images of the liquid engines on display at the National Museum of China. The first two images show the YF-77.

 

[by78]

An iodine electric thruster developed by

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

(纳飞卫星动力科技有限公司). It recently completed a test ignition that lasted 109+ minutes. Thrust is around two milli-newtons and is suitable for small satellites.

Here's a bigger 10mN iodine thruster developed by the same company. So far, it has gone through 750 hours of test runs (1st image). Two of these units can be mated together for 20mN of thrust (2nd and 3rd image).

 

[by78]

Models of China's next generation manned spacecraft and lunar lander on display at the National Museum of China. All images are high-resolution.