China Space Military：Recon, Satcom, Navi, ASAT/BMD, Orbital Vehicle, SLV, etc.

[JSCh]

China’s 2016 Space Plans Detailed

• By Leonard David
• January 18th, 2016

China is pushing the throttle forward in its 2016 space exploits, an agenda that includes a piloted space mission and the maiden flights of two new boosters.

According to state-run news agencies, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has spotlighted plans to launch this year the Tiangong 2 space laboratory and the Shenzhou 11 crewed spacecraft and to test-fly the Long March 5 and Long March 7 rockets.

In a statement on the company’s website: “This year will see more than 20 space launches, the most missions in a single year.”

Booster basics

Long March 5 has a payload capacity of 25 tons to low Earth orbit, or 14 tons to geostationary transfer orbit. This booster is on tap to carry the Chang’e-5 lunar probe around 2017. If successful, this robotic sample return mission would check off China’s last chapter in a three-step lunar program of orbiting, landing and returning.

Long March 7 is a medium-sized booster able to carry up to 13.5 tones to low Earth orbit or 5.5 tons to sun-synchronous orbit at a height of 700 kilometers. This launcher is also assigned the task of carrying cargo to the planned space station.

Both boosters have been developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASC).

Space lab testing

The Tiangong 2 space laboratory is to be orbited in the first half of the year to test life support and space rendezvous technologies for the country’s future space station. The Shenzhou 11 piloted spacecraft is to follow, launched by a Long March 2F booster with the crew to rendezvous and latch up with the space laboratory.

China’s space planning calls for the country to loft the core module of its space station in 2018 to test related technologies and to research engineering issues. That larger space complex is to become fully operational about 2022, according to government sources.

Robot arm development

Meanwhile, new details regarding the Chinese Space Station Manipulator system (CSSM) are emerging.

Li Daming, a senior engineer at the Beijing Key Laboratory of Intelligent Space Robotic Systems Technology and Applications, reports the CSSM is designed for the missions of relocking spacecraft sections, docking assistance, installing equipment, and maintaining the space station.

Work on the CSSM system has been underway since 2007 and consists of two robotic arms.

Prototype Chinese Space Station Manipulator system (CSSM) undergoing testing.
Credit: Li Daming/Beijing Key Laboratory of Intelligent Space Robotic Systems Technology and Applications​

“Compared with Russia and USA as well as some other developed countries, China has a big technology gap in materials, electronics, manufacturing, testing, etc. The CSSM provides the Chinese researchers and engineers a great opportunity for developing and advancing their space robotics technologies and experience,” Li and his colleagues noted last year in a paper delivered at Space 2015, a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Two arms

In a technical paper provided to Inside Outer Space, the CSSM system consists of two separate robotic arms: a Core Space Station Cabin’s Manipulator (CSSCM) and an Experimental Space Station Cabin’s Manipulator (ESSCM).

The CSSCM is nearly 35 feet long (10.5 meters). Max payload of the 7-jointed CSSCM is 55,116 pounds (25,000 kilograms).

The ESSCM is 18 feet (5.5 meters) in length. The two robot arms can work separately or combined as one robotic system.

China presses forward on its space station work.
Credit: CMSE​

Major tasks

In terms of the overall Chinese space station program, the major tasks of the manipulators are:

— Cabin translocation and docking: The basic configuration of the space station consists of three individual cabins assembled through translocation and docking operations. First, the Experimental Space Station Cabin is docked to the axial port of the Core Space Station Cabin; and then, the side docking is achieved by separating, translocating and docking operation by the manipulator.

— Free-floating vehicle capture and docking: The manipulator can capture a free-floating vehicle and transfer it to berthing port of the Space Station for docking.

— Support an astronaut for extra-vehicular activities (EVA): With the support of the manipulator, an astronaut can be fixed to the tip of the manipulator using a foot stopper, to perform a large-scale movement task.

— Payload handling: Payloads can be transferred to different destinations by the manipulator.

— EVA status check: Regular inspection of China’s space station can be achieved by the manipulator’s moving and visual ability, and surface images can be transmitted back to the station for astronauts to determine the health status of the exteriors of the orbiting complex.

— Equipment installation, replacement or repair: The manipulator can be controlled by astronauts within the facility to install, replace or repair different equipment, such as a platform or payload.

According to Li and his associates, research results obtained so far indicate that the design of the Chinese Space Station Manipulator system “has been qualified to be manufactured and tested, which lays the foundation to support the construction of the space station of China.”

China’s 2016 Space Plans Detailed

 

[qwerrty]

零壹空间CEO舒畅：做中国的SpaceX可能会遇到哪些难题？_36氪

 

[Keel]

Agreement with Chinese Space Tech Lab Will Advance Exploration Goals

by Staff WritersTucson AZ (SPX) Dec 17, 2015

The Planetary Science Institute signed a cooperation agreement with Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology (Qian Xuesen Lab) to advance their mutual interests in facilitating the open-ended expansion of the exploration of the solar system and to use the knowledge thus gained in supporting the expansion of human activity beyond the Earth.​

Both institutions also wish to advance their common interest in communicating to the public the knowledge and benefits gained through robotic and human exploration of the solar system.

The lab is named after Qian Xuesen (Hsue-Shen Tsien, used in the U.S.), who is one of the founders of the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Qian Xuesen Lab is a part of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which has been involved in China's Chang'E missions to the Moon and China's human space program.

PSI CEO and Director Mark V. Sykes signed the agreement along with Chen Hong, Director of Qian Xuesen Lab.

"China is the first country since 1976 to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. They have mapped the surface of the Moon and executed a brilliant flyby of the near-Earth asteroid Toutatis," said Sykes. "We look forward to working with them."

While in Beijing, Sykes and Senior Scientist Jian-Yang Li gave presentations at a special workshop about PSI, its current involvement in both NASA and ESA missions, PSI's education and public outreach activities, and the frontier of the science and utilization of near-Earth objects.

No NASA funds were used in support of this effort, in compliance with federal law.

Agreement with Chinese Space Tech Lab Will Advance Exploration Goals
.

 

[cirr]

Three-Axis Attitude Control

X-Band Data Link

5 Year EOF in LEO

200-400 kg

Riyadh, Rabi'II 10, 1437, Jan 20, 2016, SPA -- King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is working to complete preparation of the components of the Saudi satellite (Saudi SAT 5B) which is locally made, in preparation for its launch, via the Chinese space rocket (Long March 2D) to support remote sensing services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This came in the framework of the cooperation between the Kingdom and the Republic of the People's Republic of China in various fields, including scientific field, which also includes the establishment of a project on genetics studies.

This cooperation enhances common desire between the leaderships of the two friendly countries to push forward the bilateral relations to broad levels and turn them into a strategic partnership with wide dimensions which expressed by mutual visits over the years, including the visit of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to China in 2014 when he was the Kingdom's Crown Prince, Deputy Premier and Minister of Defense, where it contributed to the advancement of the level of partnership between the two countries in various fields, while President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China is working at the same goal during his current visit to the Kingdom.

Stakeholders to study, develop, launch, and operate with international collaborators a regionally optimized hyper-spectral mission (Saudisat 5), justified on the basis of:

- Strong applications potential within KSA and regionally, including coastal and offshore monitoring (oil slicks with thermal channels), mineral exploration, vegetation characterization and monitoring.

- High number of cloud free days favorable to the operation and use of narrow band optical imaging.

- Very few hyperspectral instruments currently operate in space, so there is the prospect of developing a world-leading position (note:. the Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd/European Space Agency (SSTL/ ESA) experimental Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) instrument is currently the only high resolution, 18m, imaging spectrometer in space).

- Excellent prospects for collaborating with international partners in instrument development, operations and applications.

 

[qwerrty]

Chinese volunteers to hold 180-day isolation study for Mars mission
(People's Daily Online) 16:57, January 21, 2016

Four Chinese volunteers are going to start their 180 days together in a simulated space capsule after Spring Festival. The simulated capsule is made out of six giant boxes, and the simulation will take place in Shenzhen, southeast China's Guangdong province.

The capsule was designed to simulate a controlled ecological life support system and was constructed in the Southern Research Institute of Space Technology, located in Shenzhen’s International Low Carbon City on Jan. 20, 2016.

Four volunteers (not astronauts), including three men and a woman, will enter into the confined capsule after Spring Festival. They will experience 180 days of isolated life together and conduct more than 20 high-level experiments, including simulation of a round-trip journey to Mars, and the establishment of a base station on Mars and the moon.

A research fellow with the Southern Research Institute of Space Technology explained in detail the "internal secrets" of the simulated space capsule. The six giant boxes feature a low pressure tank, two plant tanks, a resources tank, a life support cabin and a crew cabin. The crew cabin is 8.2 meters, or three stories high, he said, and the minimum height of all the boxes is 3.6 meters. There will be no simulation of weightlessness this time.

Vegetables, fruits, staple crops and oil plants are cultivated in the plant tank, where the cultivation volume is 674 cubic meters, so as to ensure production capacity for food, oxygen and water supplies for six people.

In the resources tank, there are recycling and purification systems to deal with waste, including human feces and urine, plant debris, waste water and exhaust gas. In the life support area, where food is stored and processed, there is a water supply system and air purification system.

The 180 cubic meters of the crew cabin are divided into nine parts, including a sleeping area, working and reading areas, cafeteria, gym and medical monitoring area. They are going to start the experiment after Spring Festival, but the specific time remains unknown. China will become the third country, after the US and Russia, to do such large-scale experiment.

 

[JSCh]

Updates on China's lunar missions

• Posted by Emily Lakdawalla
• 14-01-2016 15:39 CST

An article about Chang'e 4 appeared on the website of China Daily today, and it contains a small amount of news about China's present and future lunar exploration plans. Thanks to @sinodefence on Twitter for the link and to scientist Quanzhi Ye for some help with translating the news.

It had already been reported that China planned to send Chang'e 4 (the backup model of the Chang'e 3 lander) to the lunar farside. The intent to land on the farside was announced on the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program website on December 2. The China Daily News article mentions launch dates, and they're earlier than previously discussed. A communications relay satellite (based on the design of Chang'e 2) will be launched in June of 2018, and will take up a position at the Moon-Earth L2 point, where it will be able to see both the landing site and Earth. The lander will be launched at the end of 2018. There is still no official word on what the lander's scientific payload will be, or even if it will carry another rover. Interestingly, the article mentions some kind of public involvement in the payload development. China already has experience navigating lunar orbiters to the L2 point. Here's a photo captured by Chang'e 5 T1 from such a point of view:

CAST​

Earth and the Moon from Chang'e 5 T1
The Chang'e 5 test vehicle captured this beautiful view of Earth over the far side of the Moon on October 28, 2014.
Guokr -- a Chinese blog site that often hosts science-related content -- posted a blog with a little more information about the planned Chang'e 4 mission. This is not an official source! The Guokr blog mentions the south pole-Aitken basin as a possible landing site. (There is a map of the whole farside that the Guokr blog claims has the landing site "circled in red," but I've squinted at the map and do not see a red circle.) The Guokr page also has this drawing of the proposed relay satellite. That's a large dish! I wonder if it is a deployable, umbrella-style dish?

CAS​

CAD drawing of the Chang'e 4 communications relay satellite
The Chang'e 4 relay spacecraft is planned for launch in June 2018. It will travel to the Earth-Moon L2 point to enable communications with a farside lander to be launched later the same year.

The China Daily News article also talks about "successful completion" of the Chang'e 3 mission. This does not mean the end of the mission, but rather an official statement that Chang'e 3 has been successful. Monthly contact with Chang'e 3 continues, although it's not clear if it is still doing scientific observations. A review paper about Chang'e 3 recently appeared in the literature, which helped lunar mapper Phil Stooke update his maps of the Chang'e 3 landing site, likely for the final time. Here's an overview, including the lovely names for the mini-craters observed by the lander during its descent:

Chinese Academy of Sciences / Phil Stooke​

Chang'e 3 landing site geography
Named features visible during the descent of the Chang'e 3 lander, in a map produced by Phil Stooke for his Atlas of Lunar Exploration. Most of the names are from a Chang'e 3 mission overview paper by Chunlai Li and coauthors. (Li, C. et al, 2015. The Chang’e 3 Mission Overview. Space Science Reviews, v. 190, pp. 85-101.)
And here is the Yutu rover's route map:

Chinese Academy of Sciences / Phil Stooke​

Yutu route map (final)
The Yutu rover's path and scientific activities across the lunar surface, in a map produced by Phil Stooke for his Atlas of Lunar Exploration. The base map consists of a mosaic of images captured by the Chang'e 3 lander during its descent.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/01141307-updates-on-change-program.html

 

[JSCh]

China invites public on-board its robotic missions; and how to download Chang'e data

• Posted by Quanzhi Ye
• 25-01-2016 10:50 CST

China plans a busy future in robotic space exploration. As Emily has mentioned on this blog already, the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) has finally confirmed the plan of sending Chang'e 4 to the far side of the moon by 2020. Chang'e 5 is in production, according to CLEP. And an ambitious 2020 mission to Mars is currently under consideration. The mission may consist of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. Meanwhile, according to Liu Jizhong (deputy commander, CLEP), as of January 14, Chang'e 3 is still doing science and sending back data.

Besides the scientific merit (which is evident), what interests me most about the upcoming Chang'e 4 mission is their intention to get the public involved. With the previous Chang'e missions, there was some public interaction, mostly the posting of pictures taken by the probes or interacting with netizens through cutie social media accounts. But there will be more on Chang'e 4.

On January 8, 2016, the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) released an unusual "Call for Proposal" to the general public, for a small payload that may go on-board the Chang'e 4 lander and/or the planned relay satellite at Earth-Moon L2 point. The details of the call are available here (in Chinese). The payload is limited to 3 kilograms in mass and 20 watts of power. It seems CLEP is most interested in a payload that is useful for public outreach, although scientific merit and technical feasibility are also important. Proposals are due in late March. The winners will be announced some time in mid-2016. Unfortunately, the competition is only open to Chinese nationals (excluding personnel associated to the mission). CLEP notes that although "international contributions are welcome as usual", it is already considering proposals from international partners, therefore they are reserving this competition for Chinese nationals.

But this does not mean that you are hands-off everything from Chang'e if you are not a Chinese national. In fact, I am seeing China make effort to make robotic space mission information available to the public, but they are just not advertised much. Here are some resources I have collected over time that may be of interest to some.

Full article -> http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2016/01221450-china-invites-public-on-board.html

 

[qwerrty]

interview with onespace founder
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=Mz...eced90c8a5ae3&3rd=MzA3MDU4NTYzMw==&scene=6#rd

small satellite startup companies
http://xtecher.com/Website/Project/view?pid=446
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=Mj...77a51c089a6ed&3rd=MzA3MDU4NTYzMw==&scene=6#rd

 

[onebyone]

http://v.qq.com/page/l/0/i/l01741ul9ii.html

 

[JSCh]

Graphic of the future Chinese space station

Solar panel of the future Chinese space station, reported to be under testing recently.

Core module of the space station undergoing static test. Sept. 2015​

 

[Keel]

In case you have a visual problem with the attachments above, hereunder a take 2 of @JSCh's fotos:

Graphics:

Solar panels:

Core module

.

 

[BoQ77]

A U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of an island claimed by China and two other states in the South China Sea on Saturday to counter efforts to limit freedom of navigation, the Pentagon said, prompting an angry reaction from Beijing.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade is shipped every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said no ships from China's military were in the vicinity of the guided-missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur when it passed near Triton Island in the Paracel Islands.

The U.S. Navy conducted a similar exercise in October in which the guided-missile destroyer Lassen sailed close to one of China's man-made islands, also drawing a rebuke from Beijing.

"This operation challenged attempts by the three claimants - China, Taiwan and Vietnam - to restrict navigation rights and freedoms," Davis said, reflecting the U.S. position that the crucial sea lane should be treated as international waters.

 

[BoQ77]

noted that, US didn't notice China about this patrol in advance. And there's no Chinese warship be there to shadow USS Curtis Wilbur. The patrol mission lasted for 3 hours.

 

[JSCh]

China plans to launch a space telescope for astronomy into an orbit close enough to the future space station.

A so called Man-Tended Free Flyer(MTFF) such that it could be reach for servicing, repair and upgrade easily from the space station.

 

[cirr]

China plans to launch a space telescope for astronomy into an orbit close enough to the future space station.

A so called Man-Tended Free Flyer(MTFF) such that it could be reach for servicing, repair and upgrade easily from the space station.

Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT)?