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

[shuttler]

Some pix to recap our co-operation with Russian and EU scientists in the Mars 500 project in Moscow - living and surviving in a mock-up Mars exploration for 526 days ( Start day June 3, 2010):

Chinese Scientist - Wang Yue 王跃

Family friends and supporters

The Team

Members greetings for the Chinese New Year

Translation of the boxes from L to R; Top to Bottom
> A simulation of Mars environment
> EU250: common room - equipped with a gym, freezer, storage for supplies, a "glass" house, a heating chamber, toilet
> EU100: Medical chamber: - resting area, kitchen and dining area, clinic, toilet
> EU50: Simulated Mars landing aircraft
> EU150: Living area: 6 single bedrooms, common area, control room, a kitchen and toilet

photo credits: news.66wz.com, Chinanews, sohu, people.com, sina.com

News link:
火星500：为登陆火星时刻准备着--科技--人民网

 

[cirr]

Assembly plants for trans-atmospheric vehicle，aka aerospace plane：

陕西频道_西安飞机制造（集团）公司369号总装厂房工程创鲁班奖纪实_工程_中国建筑新闻网

西安飞机工业（集团）有限责任公司628号总装厂房项目|陕西省西安市工程信息--找工程上天工网

 

[eazzy]

Nice.

 

[sweetgrape]

Long March 3B/E lofts TKSat-1 for Bolivia

Long March 3B/E lofts TKSat-1 for Bolivia | NASASpaceFlight.com
我国成功发射玻利维亚通信卫星-新华网


A Chinese Long March 3B/E launched the the TKSat-1 satellite for Bolivia on Friday. The launch took place at 16:42 UTC(BJT 00:42) from the LC2 Launch Complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan province.

 

[sweetgrape]

The panoramic photograph from Chang'e 3

Video:
“嫦娥三号”着陆区全景照片首次公开 - 搜狐视频

A cute GIF.

 

[xuxu1457]

China launches communications satellite for Bolivia

China launches communications satellite for Bolivia, Xi voices congratulations - Xinhua | English.news.cn
XICHANG, Sichuan, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- China successfully sent a Bolivian communications satellite into orbit with its Long March-3B carrier rocket from southwest Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 0:42 a.m (Beijing Time) Saturday.

Bolivian President Juan Evo Morales Ayma was present, the first time a foreign head of state has witnessed a satellite launch in China.



The satellite was produced by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) with a designed longevity of 15 years. It is Bolivia's first communications satellite.

The satellite is named Tupac Katari in homage to an 18th century indigenous hero who fought Bolivia's Spanish colonizers.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message of congratulations to President Morales, saying the successful development and launch of the satellite represents the latest achievements and level of cooperation between China and Bolivia in the field of science and technology.

"The satellite will play an important role for Bolivia to improve its broadcasting, education and medical services. It will make important contributions to promote cooperation between China and Latin American countries," Xi said.

Bilateral ties have been progressing smoothly while pragmatic cooperation in all areas are making steady headway since China and Bolivia established diplomatic ties 28 years ago, Xi said.

Xi said China hopes for more space collaboration with Bolivia, which will promote mutual beneficial cooperation and friendly relations, bringing benefits to the people of both countries.

Related:

[Video]Chinese president meets Bolivian counterpart

China, Bolivia promote friendly relations

BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- China and Bolivia on Thursday vowed to further promote their friendly and reciprocal relationship in talks between the two presidents.

President Xi Jinping and visiting Bolivian President Juan Evo Morales Ayma agreed in their talks at the Great Hall of the People that the two countries should keep up high-level engagements; strengthen communication between governments, legislatures and political parties; share experience on state governing; and continue to support each other on major issues involving each other's core interests. Full story

Bolivia unveils ground control station for Chinese-made satellite

LA PAZ, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales inaugurated on Monday the first ground control station built to operate and receive data from Chinese-built Tupac Katari satellite.

"I am very pleased with the progress" made in this area, Morales said at the opening of the facility in El Alto, Amachuma, some 35 km west of the capital. Full story

TKSat-1, also known by Tupac Katari, is the result of an agreement signed on December 13, 2010, by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) and the Bolivia Aerospace Bureau.
The contract for the Tupak Katari Communications Satellite Program was signed in La Paz, the administrative capital city of Bolivia. Mr. Ivan Zambrana, Executive General Director of ABE, and Mr. Yin Liming, President of CGWIC, executed the contract as the representative of each party.

According to the contract, CGWIC was responsible for delivering the Tupak Katari communications satellite into orbit and the relevant ground application system to Bolivia. The satellite was developed from the DFH-4 platform, which is manufactured by China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).
With 30 transponders on board (26 Ku-band, 2 C-band and 2 Ka-band), the Tupak Katari satellite is designed for a 15 year mission duration.

The contract also included the launch of the satellite using the Long March-3B/E launch vehicle developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), from Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC). China Satellite Launch & Tracking Control (CLTC) were responsible for the ground segment.

Tupak Katari will begin orbit operations at 87.2 degrees West longitude in March 2014.

The satellite’s launch mass was 5,100 kg, with 30 transponders, four of which will be used for TV transmission only and the rest for transmission and reception. The satellite will also service Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, North of Chile and Argentina, and the East of Brazil.

 

[cirr]

Coming up next：

You've seen here first。

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

^^^very nice I like the look, look forward to see it soon

 

[cirr]

Now this is a breakthrough that will make China a real space superpower：

High power space nuclear propulsion system

航天五院空间大功率核电推进研究获重要成果_中国航天科技集团公司

 

[cirr]

The future is bright，the future is orange。

 

[Cyberian]

Is it true that the Jade Rabit landed in Sea of Rain as oppose to the Sea of Rainbow?

Are they any onboard computers installed on the orbiter to avoid obstacles? If so, that'd be another success for China.

 

[shuttler]

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spies Chang'e 3 and Yutu
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2013/12/30 04:36 CST

As promised, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's sharp eyes spotted the Chang'e 3 lander and Yutu rover on the lunar surface on December 25. The hardware shows up as a few bright pixels throwing long, dark shadows, clearly visible in a before-and-after comparison. The lander is the bigger blob, the rover a much smaller one.

NASA / GSFC / ASU
Chang'e 3 and Yutu seen from orbit
On December 25, 2013, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spied Chang'e 3 and Yutu on the lunar surface. It was near sunset on the pair's first lunar day of operations. In its extended mission, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is in an elliptical orbit whose altitude over the Chang'e 3 landing site is 150 kilometers, so its highest-resolution images have about 1.5 meters per pixel.

NASA / GSFC / ASU
Chang'e 3 landing site as seen from orbit (before and after)
The two images were taken on June 30 and December 25, 2013, before and after the landing.

More of the above here:
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spies Chang'e 3 and Yutu | The Planetary Society

 

[SOHEIL]

Coming up next：

You've seen here first。

Unmanned ?

 

[xhw1986]

A lunar rover, a crewed space station, and new rockets top China's space agenda

For the opening ceremony of the 64th International Astronautical Congress in Beijing this past September, the Chinese hosts pulled out all the stops. Acrobats bounded against a backdrop of starry skies, dancers in bulky spacesuits lumbered across the stage, and opera singers sang songs of love under a glowing neon moon.

Throughout the weeklong conference, Chinese officials spoke proudly of developing their lunar exploration program, building a heavy-lift rocket, constructing a spaceport, and planning an orbital space station. As 2014 dawns, China has the most active and ambitious space program in the world.

“They are having launches, and in the United States we’re in gridlock,” says Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, in Newport, R.I. “The Chinese will have a rover onthe moon, and we’re still developing PowerPoints for programs that don’t get approved by Congress.” That rover is rolling over the regolith right now.

How are the Chinese accomplishing so much? One explanation came from Gao Hongwei, chairman of the state-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp., who took the stage during September’s Beijing conference. “We are developing a space industry with Chinese characteristics,” he said.

Johnson-Freese put it more bluntly: “In terms of technology, are the Chinese at a peer level or more advanced than us? No, absolutely not. What they have that we don’t is political will.”

That point was driven home in a panel discussion at the Beijing conference, where the heads of the world’s major space agencies took the stage together. When asked about his agency’s biggest challenge, Ma Xingrui, director of the China National Space Administration, spoke of engineering complications with the heavy-lift rocket now in development, a behemoth that will be capable of lifting 25 tons into orbit. When Charles F. Bolden Jr., the NASA administrator, was asked the same question, he had quite a different answer. “I think NASA’s biggest challenge is inspiring our nation,” he said. “We need to inspire the American public, and we need to inspire this Congress. Because that translates to funding.”

China’s space program differs from those of other nations in part because of the nation’s political structure: A single-party government with a bevy of strong state-owned enterprises can get a lot done. And the Chinese government has committed fully to its space program, seeing it as a way to win global prestige. While China is just now meeting milestones that the United States and the former Soviet Union passed decades ago, the Chinese government’s unflagging support means that its program is quickly catching up.

China launched its first orbital space lab, a small module called Tiangong-1 (the name means “heavenly palace”), in 2011. There followed a cautious series of spacecraft rendezvous: An uncrewed craft docked that year, and there was one crewed mission in both 2012 and 2013, with short stays aboard the lab. The next step will be the launch of Tiangong-2, another space lab, in 2015, followed by the construction of a full-scale space station, due for completion around 2020.

This slow and steady approach, so unlike the U.S.-Soviet space race, means that Chinese astronauts “spend a lot of time on the ground,” says Brian Harvey, author of the recent book China in Space. “They are very disciplined in not letting themselves be rushed. China is very conscious of its history. They’ve been doing rocketry since 1274, so what’s the hurry?”

The Chinese expect to finish their space station around the time that the International Space Station runs out of funding, and they hope to fill the void. Already the Chinese government has spoken of allowing other nations’ astronauts to stay aboard the station. China also intends the station to facilitate even more ambitious voyages into the solar system.

“The Chinese have said repeatedly that they are not going to go into space, land on the moon, look around, say, Been there, done that,’ and consider themselves done,” says Johnson-Freese. “They’re going to do stepping-stone infrastructure, and in those terms their space station makes sense.”

Where else might Chinese astronauts go? Their current program doesn’t commit to a crewed mission to the moon, but many experts believe the odds favor one. A recent report published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposes a road map that also mentions a crewed lunar base, a crewed mission to Mars, and robotic exploration of other planets by the year 2050.

That report lists technologies that Chinese researchers need to master, including autonomous navigation and high-speed communication systems for deep space, as well as fuel cells and atomic generators to power the spacecraft. Activity on all these engineering fronts could indeed achieve the report’s stated goal, says Harvey: “By 2050, China should be the leading scientific nation in the world.”

Hainan Island, which lies south of Hong Kong in the South China Sea, is the site of one of the world’s biggest construction projects. Workers are pouring concrete near the town of Wenchang for China’s fourth space-launch facility, designed to accommodate the next-generation Long March 5 heavy-lift rockets. These rockets are too big to move to China’s other three launch sites—they don’t fit through the railway tunnels—so workers are building the large-diameter rockets in the harbor city of Tianjin, and then transporting them by barge to Hainan.

The Hainan site is expected to be operational by the end of 2014, when it will begin launching midsize rockets; the Long March 5 is scheduled for completion in 2015. What’s more, tourists will be able to take in the show. The Chinese space agency is building resorts and a space theme park on the island, which will reportedly include an aerospace museum and spaceflight simulators. Chinese space enthusiasts will be able to take a holiday in Hainan and, presumably, enjoy the spectacle of their own rockets soaring into the stratosphere.

China’s rockets aren’t just getting bigger; they’re getting better chemistry. The first few Long March rockets used highly toxic and corrosive rocket fuels, but the newest multistage rockets use clean and powerful liquid propellants (kerosene and liquid oxygen for the first stage, hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the upper stage). “In five years’ time, China will have a completely new rocket fleet,” says Harvey.

The crewed space program may get most of the attention, but China’s new rockets won’t be used only to launch space labs and astronauts. Just as the Chinese space station will provide an alternative (or a successor) to the ISS, China is seeking to furnish the world with an alternative to today’s two global satellite navigation systems: GPS, run by the United States, and Russia’s GLONASS.

China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System already has 14 satellites in orbit, according to a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress by Ran Chengqi, director of the China Satellite Navigation Office. In December 2012 the system began providing regional service for the Asia Pacific, with coverage stretching from China to Australia. Ran announced that more than 20 vehicle manufacturers have already begun installing dual-mode navigation systems that use both GPS and BeiDou. “We have entered an era of multinavigation system integration,” said Ran, “and compatibility and interoperability have become the major trends.” By 2020, the full fleet of 35 satellites is expected to be in place, providing global coverage.

Finally, China is turning its attention to space science, which has been largely missing from its space program thus far. In 2010 the Chinese government established a special budget to support five space science satellites, according to Wu Ji, director general of space science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The first of these satellites, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope, will perform all-sky surveys and in-depth observations of X-ray sources like black holes and neutron stars. It’s expected to launch in 2014 or 2015.

Short of an economic or political collapse, experts don’t see much likelihood that China will abandon its slow, steady march to the stars. Too many dreams and ambitions are wrapped up in it.

“The average age of the Chinese space worker is 27,” says Harvey. “These people are at the beginning of their professional careers. Just imagine them in 20 years, when they have experience and have learned from their mistakes. It’s not a question of what will they do; it’s a question of what will they not do.”

>>>China: The Next Space Superpower - IEEE Spectrum


Timeline: China's Space Program, Past and Future

>>>Timeline: China's Space Program, Past and Future - IEEE Spectrum

 

[armchairPrivate]

China will definitely be a space superpower, but not the sole superpower. The US is very advance in this field. Due to cutbacks and policy changes, the US has reduced its space projects branched out to other areas in space.

IF the US wants to put its attention more to the moon such as building lunar bases etc, they are perfectly capable of doing that. It won't take it long to get back into the game if the money is available and the political wind changes.

In the near future, I see the lawmakers in Washington will change both their minds and their tunes to have closer joint ventures with China.