China's Space Program Thread II

[anzha]

Astronomers probably wish that they had access to five dollar ASATs.

It's what we call a (*wiggles fingers*) LA-SER. Just need to upgrade the telescopes' mirrors. Use grad students to do it on the cheap.

More seriously, astronomy is going to be negatively impacted. Asteroids hunting is slowly being wound down though due to the lack of real threat.

If there was a way to mass manufacture small sat telescopes and fly them in formation 'easily' then it might be mitigated. I've seen papers for 3U cubesat telescopes to do radial velocity measurements for single stars. Even the number needed for the nearest 100 pc of space would be an uncomfortably large amount.

NASA and DOE have been talking about a lunar farside observatory as a 'ground based' alternative to the space telescopes. Talk about expensive though.

 

[by78]

Chinese rating of ASAT missile from their perspective
1 Chinese DN13
2 Russian A236
3 US ASM135
4 Indian PDV2
5 Russian S500
6 Chinese DN2
7 US SM3
8 Russian 79M6
9 Chinese SC19
10 US PGM17
World's top 10 Anti-satellite missiles from one Chinese article's perspective

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Please stop sharing random, low quality fanboy articles.

 

[by78]

The Chinese Space Station (background) and the International Space Station (foreground) transiting the Moon.

 

[by78]

Mr. Zhang Heping (张和平) has won the 2022 Aerospace Propulsion Award of the Sixth Academy of CASC for his work on developing the large titanium alloy nozzle of the YF-100M engine used on the second stage of Long March 10 rocket.

 

[by78]

Illustrations from paper on a HTHL spaceplane/transport plane. Might this be about the Tengyun project? Does anyone have access to the paper to provide more context?

Some specs based on the illustrations:
- Re-usability: >100 times
- Payload capacity: >60 tons
- Reliability: <0.997 (target goal), 0.97 (achieved)
- Speed: ≥10,000km
- Cost per launch: ~5% of single-use rockets

 

[by78]

The Haiyang Oriental Spaceport (海阳东方航天港) has six sea launches planned for 2023, involving four different rocket models: Long March 11, Jielong-3, Ceres-1, and Gravity-1.

 

[Kalec]

Illustrations from paper on a HTHL spaceplane/transport plane. Might this be about the Tengyun project? Does anyone have access to the paper to provide more context?

Not Tengyun Project, which is a project under CASIC. This paper was published by employee from CASC instead, so a parallel development.

 

[by78]

Siwei Gaojing-2 01 and 02 X-band SAR satellites (launched in July 2022) have successfully completed a dual-satellite interferometric mapping test. The two satellites flew in close formation and carried out 0.5m high-resolution imaging, 1:25,000 scale DEM interferometric mapping, and centimeter-level surface deformation measurement.

 

[by78]

Lunar soil samples returned by Chang'e-5 have yielded some interesting results. Water is embedded in glass beads formed by meteorite impacts. It's proposed that these beads can provide water for future manned exploration on the Moon.

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Abstract​

The past two decades of lunar exploration have seen the detection of substantial quantities of water on the Moon’s surface. It has been proposed that a hydrated layer exists at depth in lunar soils, buffering a water cycle on the Moon globally. However, a reservoir has yet to be identified for this hydrated layer. Here we report the abundance, hydrogen isotope composition and core-to-rim variations of water measured in impact glass beads extracted from lunar soils returned by the Chang’e-5 mission. The impact glass beads preserve hydration signatures and display water abundance profiles consistent with the inward diffusion of solar wind-derived water. Diffusion modelling estimates diffusion timescales of less than 15 years at a temperature of 360 K. Such short diffusion timescales suggest an efficient water recharge mechanism that could sustain the lunar surface water cycle. We estimate that the amount of water hosted by impact glass beads in lunar soils may reach up to 2.7 × 1014 kg. Our direct measurements of this surface reservoir of lunar water show that impact glass beads can store substantial quantities of solar wind-derived water on the Moon and suggest that impact glass may be water reservoirs on other airless bodies.

 

[by78]

Some illustrations from a study titled

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.

Some features and specifications of the taikobot:
- Light-weight and compact (~25kg), designed to work in microgravity environments.
- Height: 1.71m
- Anthropomorphic arms with six-degrees-of-freedom
- Smart hands with 15-degrees-of-freedom
- The torso has 2-degrees-of freedom
- Legs have 4-degrees-of-freedom
- The head is mounted on a gimbal

Abstract: This paper proposes a full-size and free-flying humanoid robot named Taikobot that aims to assist astronauts in a space station and maintain spacecrafts between human visits. Taikobot adopts a compact and lightweight (∼25 kg) design to work in microgravity, which also reduces launch costs and improves safety during human–robot collaboration. Taikobot’s anthropomorphic dual arm system and zero-g legs allow it to share a set of intravehicular human–machine interfaces. Unlike ground-walking robots, Taikobot maneuvers in a novel push–flight–park (PFP) strategy as an equivalent astronaut in a space station to maximize workspace and flexibility. We propose a PFP motion planning and control method based on centroidal dynamics and multi-contact model. Based on the proposed method, we carried out extensive simulations and verified the feasibility and advantages of the novel locomotion strategy. We also developed a prototype of Taikobot and carried out several ground experiments on typical scenarios where the robot collaborates with human astronauts. The experiments show that Taikobot can do some simple and repetitive tasks along with astronauts and has the potential to help astronauts improve their onboard working efficiency.