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China's Largest Rocket CZ-5 ... Maiden Launch 20:42 November 3, 2016!

Congratulations to China on an amazing achievement. I read through the entire thread and can sense the pride and happiness. We've been waiting for this launch for years and to see it happen gives me so much joy.

The sleeping giant is starting to awaken!

:china:
This CZ-5 is very important. It is not just a generation leap but usher China into a new variant of experiment and projects which cannot be accomplish by previous generation.
 
posted: 11/4/2016 7:00 AM
China says new rocket brings space station plans closer
  • AR-311039745.jpg&updated=201611040012&MaxW=800&maxH=800&noborder

    In this photo taken Thursday Nov. 3, 2016, a CZ-5 heavy-lift rocket, the latest in China's Long March series, blasts off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Wenchang county in south China's Hainan province. China says its plans for a permanent space station remain on track with the successful launch of its new heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket. (Chinatopix Via AP)
    Associated Press

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
cceimg




BEIJING -- China's plans for a permanent space station remain firmly on track with the successful launch of its new heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket that will enable ambitious future missions, including a planned trip to Mars.


The towering rocket that blasted off Thursday night from the Wenchang launch center will be used to launch components for the Tiangong 2 space station and other massive payloads.

China launched the Tiangong 2 precursor facility in September and sent up two astronauts in mid-October to live aboard it for 30 days. The station's 20-ton core module will be launched in 2018, and the completed 60-ton station is set to come into full service in 2022 and last at least a decade.

The Tiangong, or "Heavenly Palace," stations are considered stepping stones to an unmanned mission to Mars by the end of the decade.

The Long March 5's next mission will be lofting the robotic Chang'e 5 probe to the moon next year to land a rover before returning to Earth with samples.

The 57-meter (187-foot) two-stage rocket is China's largest, capable of carrying 25 tons of payload into low-earth orbit and 14 tons to the more distant geostationary transfer orbit, in which a satellite orbits constantly above a fixed position on the earth's surface. That is more than twice the carrying capacity of China's most capable current rocket, the Long March 7.

It is also just slightly less brawny than the most powerful rocket in service, the United Launch Alliance's Delta IV, although SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, planned for launching next year, is designed to carry a payload into low-earth orbit of more than twice that size.

Not to be outdone, China is working on an even bigger rocket capable of lifting 100 tons of payload into low-earth orbit, Tian Yulong, the program's chief engineer, was quoted as saying at a news conference following Thursday's launch. That would put it in the range of the now-retired Saturn 5 rockets the U.S. used in the Apollo lunar missions.

Unlike earlier rockets that used highly toxic fuels, the Long March 5 burns a more environmentally friendly and less expensive kerosene-liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen mix. It has a takeoff weight of 870 tons and a thrust of 1,060 tons. Wenchang on the southern island of Hainan is China's fourth and newest launch site.

Although Thursday's mission was mainly designed to test the reliability of the Long March 5, it also carried a satellite for testing technology used to observe space debris, new electric sources and electric propulsion, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Its upper section, the Yuanzheng 2, is designed to better launch multiple satellites and send them directly into orbit, Xinhua said.

In a joint congratulatory letter following the launch, the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee, the cabinet and the commission overseeing the military praised the new rocket as "the pinnacle of innovation in carrier rocket science and technology."

"Its successful launch... marks a milestone in China's transition from a major player in space to a major power in space," the letter said, according to state media.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20161103/news/311039745/

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Long March 5 launch blasts China into age of space station and deep space exploration
Posted By Andrew Jones

2016/11/03 19:15 UTC

Topics: Chinese human spaceflight, mission status, rockets

Today, China launched its largest rocket yet, the Long March 5, from the new coastal launch center on Hainan Island. The launch is a major step forward on the country's path to deep space. Liftoff took place after sunset at Wenchang at 20:43 local time (12:43 UTC), stunning thousands of spectators, carrying the Shijian-17 ion propulsion technology experiment satellite towards geosynchronous orbit. The Long March 5 is capable of launching payloads up to 14 tons to geosynchronous orbits.


Xinhua news

Long March 5's first launch
China's first Long March 5 rocket lifted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Center on November 3, 2016 at 20:43 local time (12:43 UTC).

This is game-changing for China. At 57 meters tall and weighing 869 metric tons, the Long March 5 is among the world’s most powerful currently active, comparable to the Delta-IV Heavy. It will allow China to launch components for a large, 60-tonmodular space station, starting with the 20 metric ton core in 2018. The space station will eventually share its orbit with aHubble-class telescope, also to be launched by the Long March 5, capable of docking with the station for maintenance.

The heavy-lift rocket also means China is now capable of carrying out exciting deep-space missions. Next year the same Long March 5 variant as launched today will send the Chang’e-5 probe to the Moon to collect samples and return to Earth, something not attempted since the 1970s. The country’s first independent interplanetary mission – which boldly combines an orbiter, lander and rover in one shot – will head for Mars in summer 2020. China is also developing a deep space strategy for coming decades to make use of these new capabilities, including missions to the lunar far side and the poles.

If some of this sounds like a repeat of past endeavors by others, or lacks the vision of the grand humans-to-Mars plans out there – or even a Moon landing – it’s worth looking at where China came from to reach this point, and consider what they could achieve next. China’s leaders approved the ‘Project 921’ human spaceflight program in 1992 when the country’s economy was around 20 times smaller than today, setting the upcoming space station as the ultimate goal.

With a relative lack of resources but some technological assistance from Russia, just over a decade later in October 2003 Yang Liwei became the first Chinese in space. But for the next stage, building the space station, China needed new, larger rockets, with more powerful engines burning different fuels to the now-aging Long March launch vehicles powered by highly toxic hydrazine. Developing the new rockets would take more than a decade of planning and overcoming diverse challenges.

The 5-meter-diameter core of the Long March 5 posed big engineering and manufacturing challenges, requiring strength while having a thickness of just 3 millimeters. The country’s rail, road and tunnel networks cannot handle such a huge rocket, so they had to develop a new, coastal launch center. Transporting components from Tianjin in the north to Hainan in the south required the building of new ships, Yuanwang 21 and 22.

But after more than a decade of development, channeling resources, and overcoming delays from engine test failures, China now has a new and adaptable heavy-lift rocket, and has big plans to use it. There are other benefits, too. The Long March 5 is part of a new generation of rockets including the medium-lift Long March 7, whose modular design and manufacturing bring benefits in terms of cost, preparation time, and reliability.

Using refined RP-1 kerosene and liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen oxidizer, the propellant is cheaper, provides more thrust, and produces far less dangerous or polluting by-products than the older, hydrazine-powered Long March 2, 3 and 4 launch vehicles.

China’s progress to this point has been a long, steady march, but with this success the pace may now pick up. The Long March 5 experience is helping China’s early work on the Saturn-V class Long March 9. Meanwhile, the first Long March 7 launched in June tested a scale return capsule intended for future deep space use.

Looking at what China has achieved, its ability to plan ahead and the various pieces being assembled, today’s launch could be seen as a one more step towards not only establishing a permanent presence in low Earth orbit, but also putting people back on the Moon.



See other posts from November 2016



Read more blog entries about: Chinese human spaceflight, mission status, rockets

Comments:
Paul McCarthy: 11/04/2016 03:07 CDT

If China pulls off an "orbiter, lander and rover will head for Mars in summer 2020", it will mean they have virtually caught up with the US, and may well then be ahead of Europe and Russia.

Hopefully (I think one can say presumably) they will head extremely rapidly for Mars life detection and for sample return. Even more hopefully, they will head equally rapidly for life detection on Europa and Enceladus, missions to Ceres etc, all to demonstrate supremacy over the US!

These would be devastating blows to US prestige. But the fact is that the prospect of such an outcome might trigger a new "space race', and a golden age of planetary exploration. So I have to say I'm hoping for it.
LocalFluff: 11/04/2016 07:16 CDT

China now has the largest launcher in the world, at least en par with Delta IV Heavy. And until Russia gets its Angara 5 going which is considerably larger. The SLS is a sad story which might remain a jobs and bribes program until it is canceled. Falcon Heavy is delayed and delayed and SpaceX doesn't seem to give it any priority. They said they stopped its development to focus on solving the first F9 failure. Maybe it is on the ice now again.
RIVER: 11/13/2016 08:41 CST

So i know Chinas economy is thriving and this is good, this article however makes it sound as if there space explorations are also striving so if they keep on this pace and America keeps on theres how long will it take for China to surpass us on our conquest for greater space missions. By River FOR MRS HERROLD

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2016/1103-long-march-5-launch-blasts.html

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China launches Long March 5, one of the world’s most powerful rockets
November 3, 2016 Stephen Clark

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Donald Franck
When NASA Administrator Griffin, was selling the Constellation program to congress, up on capital hill. He said how once China had the U.S. capabiltiy to match our Delta IV heavy they could and would goto the moon. He said his team and himself had "crunched the numbers" and they would only need four flights to assemble and goto the moon. THAT was why the U.S. had to buiild TWO NEW rockets.

Not a single congressional member asked the obvious question. Why don't we just use the rockets we have and beat them there...
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4 · Nov 3, 2016 9:49am


Gaetano Marano
it was my same opinion ghostnasa.com/posts/049chinamoonrace.html since five LM5 are sufficient to launch nearly the same mass of a Saturn V and with a dozen of LM5 they can (also) quickly build a lunar space station and a lunar outpost to support several much-longer-than-Apollo lunar missions
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1 · Nov 3, 2016 10:19am


David Teer ·
Founding Member at New Song Fellowship
we have already beat them to the moon
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6 · Nov 3, 2016 10:39am


Robert Jones ·
Rutgers University
Congress wanted the SLS. It's the old bigger is better myth. Dating from sputnik, "If we're bigger we're better." Trade studies suggest for a manned Mars mission something a tad larger than Proton is most economical. (Exact size depends upon the scale of the Mars mission too.) You need many launchs to gain economy. www.robert-w-jones.com
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1 · Nov 3, 2016 12:32pm
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Mayra Xalia ·
Works at Iatriko Kentro Athinon - Ιατρικό Κέντρο Αθηνών
Congratulations to China for the maiden launch of CZ-5! This is an extremely big milestone for the Chinese space program, I was glad that - almost - everything went swimmingly. I look forward to seeing this monster lift humanity s next space station in the following years!
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12 · Nov 3, 2016 10:09am


Randy Stewart ·
Western Oklahoma State College
Long March 5 is one sweet powerhouse. Congrats to all the Chinese engineers who worked on this. Great job!
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11 · Nov 3, 2016 10:33am

Michael Collins ·
London, United Kingdom
Nice one!
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9 · Nov 3, 2016 10:42am

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/11/...ch-5-one-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-rockets/
 
That rocket looks huge but can only lift 8 tons on to LEO. I wouldnt even classify into heavy lift rocket under international standard. :enjoy:
Let's be humble. The other Asian space power is scheduled to launch their own "Heavy-Lifting" rocket GSVL-MK3 by the end of this year.
Comparison of orbital launch systems
Operational, and Under Development (shaded), as of 2017 June 6th

Comparison of orbital launch systems 2017-June-7.png


 
soon both the US & CHINA will invade both the moon and the mars.
Maybe human being could colonize Mars in 50 years.
China has a project of researching the living in a self-reliant isolated system emulating the habitat condition of Mars settlement.
The heavy rocket is developed for such potential demand in future.
 
Maybe human being could colonize Mars in 50 years.
China has a project of researching the living in a self-reliant isolated system emulating the habitat condition of Mars settlement.
Well they build these monsters for this purpose.
 
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