How China is taking on the world in space

This chart shows a recent survey of satellites and space junk in low-earth orbits listed by of a country responsible for creating it the third country might be a surprise to you, China has left almost as much debris as America and Russia despite having a much shorter history in space in fact most of this was from just one missile test in 2007 when China fired a kinetic kill vehicle that one of its own retired weather satellites. The missile hit at a relative speed of about 8 km/s shattering the satellite into more than 900 large pieces and almost 35,000 small objects, many of these will remain in orbit for decades or even centuries. Now the last time I mentioned China's 2007 missile test I got some flak in the comments for picking on China so yes other nations also have done similar things and its legacy of space junk is typical of early missions in many national space programs. In the I950's global powers faced the likelihood that below Earth orbit would become the new battleground overhead and control of that space will be a deciding factor in future wars. In 1958 Chairman Mao tse-tung announced a plan to develop a space launch capability from a country's ballistic missile program. However when relations between the Soviet Union and China cooled in the late 1950s and early 60s the Russian technical assistance also went away. Although the Chinese economy grew slowly in the 60s and 70s they did become the fifth nation to independently develop and launch their own satellite system with the long march one rocket in April 1970. Over the next two decades plans for manned space flight were put on hold but the space launches continued to deploy mostly Chinese satellites in fact today there have been 258 launches using the Long March family of rockets with a success rate of 94.6%. It took until 1992 before the leadership of a modernized china saw value in a space program as a way to stimulate and demonstrate advances in engineering and science. In 1992 project 921 was approved its objective to establish a manned Chinese presence in space the first step of a new program was to develop a human rated capsule. 'Shenzhou' meaning divine vessel flew a successful unmanned test flight in November 1999. Two years later 'Shenzhou 2' - carried animals on board to test the life-support systems a monkey a dog a rabbit and some snails despite setbacks progress on Shenzhou developed steadily and on October 15th 2003 Yang Liwei a first Taikonaut traveled on board Shenzhou 5 making China the third nation to independently carry a human into space. Now the Mandarin word for space is taikong add the Western word naut and you have Taikonaut the Chinese version of astronaut. Liwei completed 14 orbits of the earth in a little over 21 hours celebrating by waving the flags of the People's Republic of China and the United Nations to the onboard cameras the next phase of project 921 was to establish a small space station. By 2011 for Chinese space agency had constructed and prepared the eight and a half ton tiangong 1 or 'Heavenly Palace'. the Space Lab was capable of supporting three Taikonaut's for scientific missions up to a few weeks. The interior was painted in two colors to represent the sky and the ground helping the Taikonauts to orientate themselves in microgravity. However the main purpose of a prototype was as a target vehicle to test docking with the Shenzhou capsule but while the Tiangong-1 was completing his final ground tests the Chinese space agency faced a new problem. On August the 18th a Long March 2C rocket suffered a failure during the second stage engine burn and it was lost. If the same thing happened during the launch of a Tiangong-1 or a manned mission it would be disastrous for the entire space program. Engineers hurriedly made more than a 170 modifications to the Long March 2 in just six weeks resulting in the new "FT-1" version which was approved to carry China's first Space Lab. On September 29th 2011 heavenly Palace successfully launched into its target orbit in June 2012 the first crew of three Taikonauts arrived including China's first woman in space Lu Yang. The Shenzhou 9 spacecraft docked successfully and remained at Tiangong-1 for 11 days. After another man visit in 2013 Tiangong-1 was put into sleep mode and its orbit has been gradually decaying ever since. But it's almost time for the first 'Heavenly Palace' to come back down to earth. In the early months of 2018 the inter-agency space debris Coordination Committee will track the space labs reentry to further refine its prediction of where it might end up. In September 2016 a second orbital lab Tiangong-2 launched from the Jing Quang Launch Center in the Gobi Desert to be joined a month later by a two-man crew aboard at Shenzhou 11 with a similar size and design to the first Heavenly Palace Tiangong-2 - was able to support Taikonauts Jing Hipong and Chen Dong for 30 days. During this time they tested a range of scientific instruments including the first ever cold atomic clock experiment in space which operated at a fraction of degree above absolute zero, so accurate but it only loses one second every billion years. As well as setting up an independent manned space program China is also breaking new ground with a serious high-tech moon Landers. On the 1st of December 2013 a 1200 kilogram Lander named Chang 3 launched on a mission to the moon. Five days after a launch Chang 3 entered an orbit approaching a hundred kilometers altitude above all in the lunar surface. After a second decelerating burn on the 14th of December the lander descended to just a hundred meters altitude above the Mare Imbrium, hovering in position whilst it's onboard cameras located landing site. Executing a 12-minute landing sequence Chang 3 touchdowned successfully, the first lunar soft landing in 37 years. But the mission was far from over. Like the soviet Lunokhod rovers of the early 1970s, chang 3 was equipped with a nuclear-powered heating unit to survive the harsh lunar nights. As well as having an array of scientific instruments the Chinese Lander also carried a 140 kilogram Rover called Yutu which explored the volcanic crater near the landing site. The rover was named by public poll in Chinese mythology, Yutu was the pet rabbit of Chang the moon goddess so in the West we know the rover as the Jade rabbit, moon rabbit or just rabbit. But this particular rabbit came to a bit of a sticky intermittent end in January 2014 when it had a "mechanical control abnormality" according to the chinese state media although many in the West believe it fell victim to be highly unforgiving the lunar dust jamming its mechanics. It intermittently communicated back again with earth up until March 2015 when it finally fell silent. But China aims to go even further in 2018 when the backup lander of a Chang 3 mission is scheduled to do a touchdown on the far side of a moon as Chang 4. This will be an impressive first, all the American and Soviet soft landings were executed in direct line of sight with the earth. The proposed landing site is the 'South Pole-Aitken basin' a candidate for the largest impact crater in the solar system with a diameter of two and a half thousand kilometers. Here the Chinese Lander will be able to examine 15 kilometers of exposed crust hopefully uncovering evidence to help us understand the moon's violent past better. In 2016 China launched 22 rockets that's more than the Russians and the same number as the US, it has plans for a third space station and its own space telescope in the mid-2020s with aims to put men on the moon by the mid 2030s, so it looks like NASA, ESA and SpaceX will have some serious competition in the near future. So thanks watching and this episode shirt was the Navy Paisley by madcap England and his available form Atomretro.com with worldwide shipping from here in the UK. Don't forget we also have the curious droid Facebook page and also like to thank all of our patrons for their ongoing support and if your interest in becoming patreon then you can find out more by clicking on the link now showing. So once again thanks for watching and please subscribe, rate and share.

Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 410,906

Rating: 4.9040408 out of 5

Keywords: china, Project 921, Shenzhou, Yang Liwei, Taikonaut, Tiangong-1, tiangong 2, Heavenly Palace, Long March 2C rocket, Long March 1, Chinese satellites, Feng Bao 1, Lu Yang, Jinquan Launch Center, Jing Hipong, Chen Dong, Chang'e-3, yutu, jade rabbit, moon rabbit, Chang'e-4, Chang'e, Moon goddess, curious-droid.com, curious droid, paul shillito, andy munzer, madcap england, atomretro.com, moon

Id: uYS5gaEIQ4A

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 27 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Getting to the moon by 2030 is hardly competition against nasa or space x. China needs reusable space launch vehicles to make launching satellites more efficient.