China's Space Program Thread II

[taxiya]

That is because they plan to switch from Shenzhou to the new capsule.
Shenzhou has 8100 kg mass and the new capsule has 14000 kg mass. It is almost twice as heavy.
That makes the new capsule too heavy for something like CZ-2F or CZ-7.

The new capsule is too heavy for CZ-2F but not CZ-7. CZ-7's LEO capacity is 13.5t according to wiki but actually higher than 14t. CZ-7 was aimed for the new capsule from the begining.

Here is the 2014 paper in which CZ-7 was planned for the new capsule. Also it can be seen that CZ-5 was for the deep space version, but it was for LEO rendezvous before departing to moon. After moon orbit rendezvous was determined, CZ-5 option is replaced by CZ-10, and because CZ-10 two stage is abled to do LEO, there is no point to have CZ-7, therefor it is also dropped.

 

[Kalec]

发射现场，谈及煤基航天煤油应用未来，165所副所长符全军表示：“满足国家战略备份需求，我们满怀期待、充满信心！”历经多年的奔跑接力，该所主导研制的煤基航天煤油已建成年产5000吨的生产线，“十四五”期间建成年产约3万吨生产线的蓝图将逐步实现。
At the launch site, talking about the future of coal-based aerospace kerosene application, Fu Quanjun, deputy director of 165 Institute, said, "We are full of expectation and confidence to meet the national strategic backup demand!" After years of running and relaying, the coal-based aerospace kerosene developed by the Institute has built a production line with an annual capacity of 5,000 tons, and the blueprint of building a production line with an annual capacity of about 30,000 tons during the 14th Five-Year Plan will be gradually realized.

China has achieved an annual production of 5,000 ton RP-1, aiming to increase the figure to 30,000 tons by the end of 2025.

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[taxiya]

I find the Western media can be hilarious at times. Here the Chinese are being very upfront, more so than the US, about their spaceplane, and we get articles scribbling away about how mysterious China is being with their bird and their entire program. The USAF doesn't say boo about their own bird and far fewer bloviate over it. Here, the Chinese are presenting about their own work outright.

For example:

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or...

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It appears to me that the Chinese are as open as the US, but journalists are outright lazy.

My conclusion is the opposite. The US NASA or USAF are secretive, their "journalists" are extremely bloating and twisting, dressing US secretiveness as openness.

 

[siegecrossbow]

My conclusion is the opposite. The US NASA or USAF are secretive, their "journalists" are extremely bloating and twisting, dressing US secretiveness as openness.

I mean they were responsible for creating misinformation that area 51 housed alien UFOs as cover story for top secret programs. If anything Chinese secrecy is tame compared to that.

 

[taxiya]

Some presentation slides on the heat resistant material used on the

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(à la Sino X-37B). The material has been applied to the leading edge and the landing gear doors of the spacecraft.

The Chinese heat resistant material has a density of between 0.32 and 0.54 grams per cubic centimeter, which falls somewhere between

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and

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, but its thermal conductivity is significantly lower (only 0.08 W/mK) compared to AVCOAT (0.16) and PICA-X (0.3). It's also easier to manufacture and has far superior compressive and tensile strength as well as superior toughness. The material can be fashioned into far larger parts/tiles than foreign competitors.

The third slide states that the reusability of the material is greater than 77%, presumably meaning that more than 77% of heat-resistant/ablative tiles can be reused for another mission. This was demonstrated in August of 2018 when the spacecraft returned to Earth, and out of the 1275 tiles(?), only 286 needed to be replaced.

By the way, the first image below is the very first close-up photo of the mysterious Chinese spaceplane that I have come across.

It worth noting of its excellent toughness and strengh and size. PICA-X is brittle and small. Brittle makes its unreliable and demanding more inspections after landing. Small makes more gaps to fill during assemble meaning more weak points and longer assembly time. One the other hand the Chinese new capsule is less than 5m in diameter, so the heat shield is a one piece, way more reliable and reusable.

 

[gelgoog]

It could be that they do not want to build separate facilities and vehicle adaptations for manned space launch for both the CZ-7 and CZ-10. So they will just use CZ-10 for manned space.

There is also the fact that CZ-10 is meant to be reusable in the future which would cut the costs down. In fact CZ-10 kind of makes CZ-7 and CZ-5 as whole redundant but it is not like the designers would have known that China would design a rocket like that back when those were designed.

The whole concept of the CZ-7 was to reuse the same tools and equipment as used in CZ-2F but change the rocket to LOX/Kerosene fuel. The CZ-10 design can benefit from using the CZ-5 tools. So it uses a larger diameter.

A single stick CZ-10 can easily replace the CZ-7. And a triple stick can replace the CZ-5.

 

[taxiya]

It could be that they do not want to build separate facilities and vehicle adaptations for manned space launch for both the CZ-7 and CZ-10. So they will just use CZ-10 for manned space.

There is also the fact that CZ-10 is meant to be reusable in the future which would cut the costs down. In fact CZ-10 kind of makes CZ-7 as whole redundant but it is not like the designers would have known they would design a rocket like that back when CZ-7 was designed.

The whole concept of the CZ-7 was to reuse the same tools and equipment as used in CZ-2F but change the rocket to LOX/Kerosene fuel.

That is what I was trying to say.

 

[huemens]

Shenzhou has 8100 kg mass and the new capsule has 14000 kg mass. It is almost twice as heavy.
That makes the new capsule too heavy for something like CZ-2F or CZ-7.

CZ-7 already carries Tianzhou, which used to be 13500 KG. The last one, Tianzhou-6 was 14000 KG.

 

[by78]

China and Malaysia signs a framework agreement for China to provide satellite broadband service to the country.

 

[by78]

The latest satellite image of the Wenchang launch center. Compared to the image from last December (2nd photo), large-scale landscaping work has been completed around the launchpads. In the lower-left, you can see the construction progress of the Hainan Commercial Spaceport.