Launch
coincides with shuttle phase out
BY CRAIG COVAULT
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: March 2, 2009
The project is being led by the General Armaments Department of the People's
Liberation Army, and gives the Chinese two separate station development
programs.
Shenzhou 8, the first mission to the outpost in
early 2011 will be flown unmanned to test robotic docking systems. Subsequent
missions will be manned to utilize the new pressurized module capabilities of
the Tiangong outpost.
Importantly,
Also the fact it has been given a No. 1 numerical designation indicates that
"The People's Liberation Army's General Armament Department aims to
finish systems for the Tiangong-1 mission this year," says an official
Chinese government statement on the new project. Work on a ground prototype is
nearly finished.
The design, revealed to the Chinese during a nationally televised Chinese
New Year broadcast, includes a large module with docking system making up the
forward half of the vehicle and a service module section with solar arrays and
propellant tanks making up the aft.
The concept is similar to manned concepts for
While used as a target to build Chinese docking and habitation experience,
the vehicle's military mission has some apparent parallels with the U.S. Air
Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program cancelled in 1969 before it flew
any manned missions. MOL's objectives were primarily
reconnaissance and technology development.
While
Along with launch of the outpost,
All previous Shenzhous have been built as
individual custom spacecraft for widely spaced missions. But
In addition to operational mission objectives the Chinese mission plans will
provide a propaganda windfall in
The Tiangong vehicle's debut in late 2010, and
increase in Chinese manned mission flight rates will coincide with the planned
termination of the
The first manned NASA Orion/Ares manned mission to Earth orbit is not likely
until 2015 with manned lunar operations no earlier than 2020.
During that period
Along with the Tiangong announcement comes another
major revelation – that
• The new Tiangong series, that can be launched on
the same type Long March 2F booster used to carry Soyuz-type Shenzhou manned transports.
• And a larger 20-25 ton "Mir class" station that will follow by
about 2020 launched on the new oxygen/hydrogen powered Long March 5 boosters.
The Chinese have shown this editor numerous space station models and
drawings during six trips to
All of those concepts looked very similar to the Soviet Mir with a core and
add-on modules-- nothing like the Tiangong just
revealed in
The heavier Mir type design, however, is the one being pursued for launch on
the new Long March 5, Liu Fang, vice president of China Aerospace Science and
Technology Corp. (CASC) told me during a visit to
The Tiangong design is designed for short tasks or
limited overnight stays in a pressurized shirtsleeve environment, while the
heavier Chinese stations planned for several years from now will be for longer
term habitation.
In addition to the manned program, the Chinese unmanned program has also
reached a major milestone with the Chang'e lunar
orbiter.
The spacecraft ended its 16 month science mission March 1 when commanded to
fire thrusters to begin a 36 min. descent toward lunar impact at 0813 GMT.
The impact point was calculated to be at 1.50 deg. south latitude and 52.36
deg. east longitude. on the opposite side of the Moon
from where the descent was begun.
Chang'e-1 began its retrofire maneuver for capture by lunar gravity at 0736
GMT under the command of two ground control stations, one at Qingdao in eastern
China and the other at Kashi in northwest China.
The spacecraft had been launched from Xichang on
board a Long March 3 on October 24, 2007 and used its imaging system to obtain
mapping imagery of the entire moon.
It was command deorbited to provide Chinese
engineers with experience in calculating and controlling the descent of a
spacecraft in lunar orbit. Lunar "masscons",
subsurface concentrations of heavy materials, can affect lunar gravity fields
and orbital trajectories involved in deorbit.
This relates directly to
In 2010-2011, before the rover and sample return missions are flown a
Chinese-technology mission may be sent to the Moon to further demonstrate
landing technologies. But the Chinese were not clear on whether it would go all
the way to the surface.
If successful, these missions also could upstage