China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
The ancients did not see the current moon, but this moon once shone upon the ancients
Yes that makes sense. I also thought of another possible reason. I heard from some scientists that China is doing the Chang'e missions as vital prep work for the manned mission before 2030. For the manned mission, there will be two Long March 10 rockets. One rocket for the lunar lander and another rocket for the crewed spacecraft which will both rendevouz and dock in lunar orbit. I imagine they will launch the lunar lander first then make sure it's in the right lunar orbit before even thinking of launching the astronauts. This means they want to know how the engines and systems of the lander will cope in outer space for a period of at least several weeks while waiting to launch the crew. This Chang'e 6 mission will give them data in this regard, i.e. maybe simulating the wait period between the two rockets of the eventual crewed lunar mission.
With the launch of Chang'e 6, that the major flagship mission of the year done. The next things to look out for is the 3 maiden launches of private rocket companies. All designed to eventually be reusable.
TL-3 will be launching in July
Nebula and Pallas will be launching in november/december.
TL-3 will be launching in July
Nebula and Pallas will be launching in november/december.
I don't understand current Chinese timeline of 2030 manned landing. Apollo 11 mission was preceded by several test Apollo missions including human flyby of moon before even attempting a landing. This was done to test all the subsystems, space craft and procedures.
China has been very cautious and methodical in its space missions so far. So, how can they directly land on the moon without doing their own series of test flights to test all the space craft, manned lunar lander and so on. But the only moon mission planned before 2030 are Change 7 & 8 which are also unmanned missions. Seems very risky to directly go from 2 of these missions and then do a manned lunar landing.
Unless China aggressively starts flying more missions to the moon, I don't see China landing a man on the moon by 2030.
Yeah but at the time of Apollo, there were no space stations. However, China has had a manned space station for a few years now and so have a lot of experience of life support systems in space. Every Chang'e mission has been used to test some aspect that will be used in the manned lunar mission. That's 5 going on 6 successful missions to the moon. It will be another 2 more Chang'e missions to learn even more before 2030. So by the time of manned landing, China will have sent 8 spacecraft to the moon already. How much more preparation do you need?
Also, Artemis is planning on landing boots on the moon on only their third SLS launch. By contrast, the Long March 10 is supposed to have its first flight in 2026, so it leaves 2 or 3 years to get a few unmanned launches out of the way before the big one in 2029/30.
Yeah I've been thinking about that as well.
If they launch CZ-10A (single core) next year or in 2026 and assuming their rate of progress is faster than SpaceX at turning Falcon 9 into Falcon Heavy (no easy feat btw, CZ-10 is a more technologically complex rocket), they can then use the years 2027-2029 to perform a lunar flyby with Mengzhou, separate to Chang'e 7 or 8.
Then there's the problem of the spacecraft and lander. NASA's Orion is still having issues two years after Artemis 1.
It's a very tight schedule but possible. I feel like they're further along than advertised. But they need to start launching CZ-10A asap.