Shenzhou-15 crew to visit China Space Station, conduct 1st crew handover in orbit in China’s space history

 

 https://www.space.com/china-shenzhou-15-astronaut-launch-webcast

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The line-up of three taikonauts for Shenzhou-15 manned spaceflight mission, Zhang Lu, Fei Junlong, and Deng Qingming (from left to right). Photo: VCG

China on Monday unveiled the line-up of three taikonauts for Shenzhou-15 manned spaceflight mission that is set to be launched on Tuesday night. The trio led by mission commander Fei Junlong with two space newcomers Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu are going to conduct a direct handover in orbit with the Shenzhou-14 crew at the China Space Station in construction, which shall mark a first in China's aerospace history. 

The upcoming Shenzhou-15 crewed spaceflight mission is not only the anchor-leg launch mission at the China Space Station construction stage, but also is the first one to embark on the next operational stage, Fei, the 57-year-old veteran taikonaut who visited the space as the mission commander in the China's Shenzhou-6 mission in 2005, remarked at a press conference on Monday at the Jiuquan Satellite Space Launch Center in Northwest China's Gansu Province. 

The crew will carry out more experiments in orbit, operate, maintain and repair relevant equipment and above all execute even more challenging extravehicular activities, or known as spacewalks, with more complicated paths to take on, Fei said on Monday.

The Shenzhou-15 crew has undergone great amount of specific training, which made them very confident to deliver all the set goals and to successfully complete their space run, Fei said. 

Deng Qingming, 56, is among the first batch of taikonauts trained in China that includes the country's first astronaut Yang Liwei and also his mission commander Fei in the Shenzhou-15 mission. He has served as a backup for nearly 25 years, in missions such as the Shenzhou-9 and 10, but never got the chance to fly. This will be his first time ever in space. 

Zhang Lu, 46, also a new face, was selected in the second batch of taikonauts trained in China in 2010. 

Mission insiders told the Global Times on Monday that the two crews of six taikonauts will carry out the space station handover in a face-to-face manner for the first time in the country's manned space history and that is not only of symbolic significance but also carries great practical values to the overall development of the country's first permanent space outpost.

Sources with China's astronaut training system, told the Global Times on Monday that such feat would enable the predecessor Shenzhou-14 to introduce and share what their work and life would be like inside the space station with the new Shenzhou-15 crew directly, boosting the continuity and efficiency of the handover.

It would also help save the resources to set the space station combo from occupied state to unoccupied one and then back again. And the handover will be more target-oriented, especially for those ongoing experiments and space station maintenance work, the sources said. 

Having six taikonauts simultaneously onboard the China Space Station in construction, would also verify its performance under the full load condition, which would lay groundwork for future tasks where more payload technicians are needed for more complicated experiments, Song Zhongping, a space watcher and TV commentator, told the Global Times.   

By plan, the handover will last for a week or so, and after that, Shenzhou-14 crew will return to the Dongfeng landing site on Earth. 

As the temperature drops to somewhere near minus 20 C in Jiuquan around this time of the year, the launch of Shenzhou-15, which is via a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan center, also faces a special challenge of extremely low temperature.

According to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the developer of the Long March-2F rocket, Shenzhou spacecraft had only been launched twice in unscrewed condition during the Shenzhou-1 and 4 missions in late November. Shenzhou-15 would be first one to be carried out with taikonauts onboard in the cold weather. 

However, the CALT explained that they have taken such unique challenge into consideration. They have also confirmed the two sets of the temperature system inside the rocket's nose cone, to make sure that the temperature of the propellant of the return and propelling module meets the launch condition. 

Major tasks of Shenzhou-15 mission

To-do list 

At a press briefing on Monday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Ji Qiming, assistant to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) director, said that Shenzhou-15 is the final launch during the construction phase of China Space Station, as well as the opening of the application phase of the station. 

They will stay in space for six months and return to the ground in May next year. The main objectives of the mission include verifying the space station's ability to support crew rotation and achieving the first in-orbit handover with the Shenzhou-14 members. 

According to the mission plan, the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft will conduct a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the space station combo at Tianhe core module's front port and then form a new combo of three space crafts and three modules. 

It will be the largest structure of the China Space Station to date with a total mass of nearly 100 tons. 

Major works across the Shenzhou-15 are categorized into six aspects, including the verification of long-term stays in the space station combo, the unlocking, installation and testing of 15 science experiment cabinets and carrying out more than 40 experiments in the fields of space science research and applications, space medicine and space technology, among others. 

They will conduct three to four extravehicular activities during the mission to complete extension pump set and platform equipment onboard the Mengtian lab module. 

The Shenzhou-15 crew will also verify the exiting of cargo airlock cabin and complete six cargo exiting tasks in cooperation with the ground. They will witness the arrival of the Tianzhou-6 cargo craft and Shenzhou-16 manned spaceship. They will also have a work handover with the Shenzhou-16 crew in orbit.

Open for cooperation

After Mengtian lab module conducted successful transposition in orbit at 9:32 am on November 3, China Space Station has completed its T-shape basic structure assembly in orbit. China has conducted 11 space launches with perfect success rate within 20 months at the space station construction stage and the China Space Station is set to become operational within 2022.

Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's manned space program, told the Global Times that the life support system of the China Space Station is one of the most advanced innovations onboard and shows China's space strength. 

Without the home developed life support system, the crew of three taikonauts would need to consume supplies weighing around 8 tons a year. But now it takes only 400 kilograms, as 95 percent of the supplies including oxygen and water, could be obtained with the help of the life support system, Zhou said. 

In addressing international cooperation as it related to the space station, Ji from the CMSA said a number of space science application projects China jointly selected with UNOOSA and ESA are being implemented as planned, and the relevant payloads will begin to enter the Chinese space station next year.

"We have always welcomed astronauts from other countries to enter the China Space Station to conduct experiments. We have received requests from several countries to send astronauts to participate in our space station missions, and we are coordinating with relevant parties and actively preparing for the training of foreign astronauts," Ji said.

On November 1, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, responded to media inquiries upon the successful docking of Mengtian space lab, the third and final part of China Space Station's three-module structure earlier that day, by saying that China always relies on its own capabilities in its manned space program, and at the same time actively engages the world. 

China's Space Station is the first of its kind to be open to all UN member states. So far a number of science experiment projects from 17 countries including Switzerland, Poland, Germany and Italy have been included in the selected projects of China Space Station, Zhao said. 

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Taikonauts' mission accomplished, safely back on earth from Chinese home in space

Safety prioritized, inclusiveness stressed in China's manned space missions 

 

Photo:Xinhua

Having extended the record of Chinese Taikonauts' longest stay in space in a single flight mission to 90 days, the Shenzhou-12 mission crew returned to Earth at the designated Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday, marking a successful conclusion of the first crewed mission at the country's space station building stage.

The Shenzhou-12 return module has separated from the orbiting module at 12:43 pm on Friday, and was then followed by a smooth separation from the propellant, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Carrying the three taikonauts – mission commander Nie Haisheng, and his fellow crew members Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – the return capsule touched down at the landing site as of 1:34 pm.


Photo:Xinhua

The homecoming heroes did not have to wait too long before the search and rescue squad with the Dongfeng landing site reached them after their landing.

They were confirmed in good condition after they touched down safely at the Dongfeng landing site.

The whole process was so smooth that Tang Hongbo was seen playing with a pen during the process of returning Earth.

"Real gold fears no fire," Nie Haisheng joked with his fellow crew, citing a Chinese proverb as they re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

It also marked the first time the Dongfeng site has received a returning Shenzhou mission, taking the place of the Siziwang Banner site, the traditional go-to landing site for China's manned space flights.


Photo:Deng Xiaoci/GT

The choice of landing site was based on a number of factors, including climate, topography, returning options, and rescue and search equipment, Pang Zhihao, a Beijing-based space expert and retired researcher from the China Academy of Space Technology, told the Global Times on Friday.

This return was more difficult than previous missions, Pang noted, as the previous ones all had fixed returning points in orbit, while that of Shenzhou-12, which was attached to the space station, had a changing orbital altitude. What's more, Shenzhou-12 was to return to a different spot from previous times in order to test the search and rescue capabilities of the Dongfeng landing site.

The site is partly surrounded by desert, with a dry desert climate and little rainfall. "As there are mountains and pitted terrain in the area, the search and rescue work was much more challenging," Pang noted.

The safe landing of the return capsule also marked the successful completion of the Shenzhou-12 mission.

"Shenzhou-12 has demonstrated China's capability to perform prolonged human spaceflight missions, including lengthy and challenging operations like extravehicular activities and providing necessary ground support," Andrew Jones, a Finland-based correspondent for space.com and spacenews.com who closely follows China's space industry, told the Global Times.


Photo:Deng Xiaoci/GT

Upcoming missions

China will carry out two more space launches for the building of its own space station this year - the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft via a Long March-7 carrier rocket from Wenchang spaceport in Hainan and another manned flight on a Shenzhou-13 spacecraft via a Long March-2F rocket from Jiuquan center.

An official update by the CMSA on Thursday said that the combo of Tianzhou-3 and Long March 7 Y4 rocket has rolled out to the launch pad in Wenchang and will take off at a suitable time. The Tianzhou-3 mission will be the second supply shipping mission to the Tianhe core module following the first by the Tianzhou-2 on May 29.

Following the Tianzhou-3 mission, the Shenzhou-13 manned spacecraft is expected to send another crew of three taikonauts to China's space station complex, which may include the first female taikonaut in the space station building stage. They will live and work in orbit for an even longer stay of six months.

Wang Yaping, who beamed down live from space to 330 elementary and middle school students in Beijing when she was in space onboard the nation's Tiangong-1 space lab module in 2013 and served as the back-up astronaut for the Shenzhou-12 crew, is widely believed to be among the most likely candidates for the mission.

According to mission insiders, the Shenzhou-13 manned space mission will also conduct an R-Bar, also known as vertical docking, with the space station complex, a first at the space station building stage.

Yao Yuanfu, the chief designer of the rendezvous and docking microwave radar system onboard the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview that the spacecraft will face a much more complicated electromagnetic environment than the Shenzhou-12 in its docking mission, as by then the space station complex will have more spacecraft docked than it did before Shenzhou-12's docking and the new docking direction adds to the complexity of the mission.

The institute's radar project has participated in China's heavyweight space programs such as the Chang'e lunar probe as well as Tianwen-1 Mars exploration, and the success of the missions have been a source of confidence for Yao and his team for the Shenzhou-13's successful docking down the road.

The Shenzhou-12 spacecraft also pulled off a vertical docking experiment shortly after separating from the Tianhe core module on Thursday to verify the capability.

Although there has been no official announcement, Shenzhou-13 is expected to be launched in a few weeks given that the Tianhe core cabin cannot be left unattended for a long time, observers noted.

Open, inclusive

Space agencies around the world have put more faith in China becoming a strong space power and they hope to collaborate with China on the space station in terms of manned spaceflights and scientific experimental loads, as the space station may be the only operational one in orbit if the International Space Station (ISS) retires after 2024.

“The construction of the space station is a complex and intensive project. Its completion would be a demonstration of China's ability to execute complex, long-term space projects. It will also bring opportunities for science and international collaboration,” Jones commented, “while also posing challenges to some space agencies in terms of determining their priorities and resources for space activities.”

China has been engaged in exchange and cooperation with international space agencies including Russia's Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA), which played a positive role in the construction of China's space station. "We are willing to work with any space institutes that are peace-loving and devoted to the peaceful use of space," said Hao Chun, director of the China Manned Space Agency.

Hao also disclosed that "there will be foreign astronauts participating in China's manned space flights, and working and staying in China's space station."

"Many of them have been learning Chinese for this purpose. And China will carry out work to select foreign astronauts for joint flight missions as our construction of the space station proceeds," he said.

Compared to the US-dominated ISS, which has been more of a party of powers, China's space station will be more inclusive in getting developing countries involved, and will provide a platform for anyone on the basis of equality, win-win cooperation and mutual respect, space observers noted.

The first batch of a total of nine international scientific experiments from 17 countries and 23 research bodies have been selected to be carried onboard China’s space station, which is expected to be operational by 2022. The first batch includes Gamma-ray burst polarimetry jointly proposed by Switzerland, Poland, Germany and China and a spectroscopic investigation of nebular gas by India and Russia.

 

Mission review of Taikonauts' 3-month space life Graphic: Wu Tiantong/GT

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World's first Quantum communication satellite to be launched in China against hackers

China is poised to become the first country to send encoded information from space that cannot be hacked. Scientists are making final adjustments to China’s first quantum communication satellite. The project chief describes it as a revolution in communications.

 China will launch its first experimental quantum communication satellite in July, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

 

BEIJING, May 28, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Deputy chief engineer Zhou Yilin (3rd L) discusses with other technicians beside the quantum satellite at Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Shanghai, east China, May 25, 2016. China plans to launch the world's first quantum satellite that can achieve secure communication in July. The satellite is dedicated to quantum science experiments. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

China is poised to become the first country to send encoded information from space that cannot be hacked. Scientists are making final adjustments to China’s first quantum communication satellite. The project chief describes it as a revolution in communications.

A quantum photon cannot be separated or duplicated, which means if someone tried to decode information, the encryption would change, and the receiver would know that his letter was opened by someone.

Scientists hope the new technology will protect China from future cyber issues. In 2015, cases involving information technology in China rose by more than 120 percent, according to survey by a non-profit cybersecurity institution. China plans to use its quantum satellite system to cover the planet by 2030.

On the ground, China is also building its own quantum information sharing network for use in national defense and security. At some point, China plans to connect the ground network to the quantum satellite system.

It has taken five years for Chinese scientists to develop and manufacture the first quantum satellite. In June, it will be transported to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in southwest China for final preparation and launch in July., 2016

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China space station will be completed by 2020, the super "eye" to speed up space rendezvous

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China announces its second space laboratory, the 'TIANGONG 2,' will blast off into orbit later this autumn, but that's not it! Shortly afterwards, a manned spacecraft will also be sent to dock with the lab with two astronauts set to stay longer in space than any of their predecessors.

China is pressing ahead its ultimate space goal. Tiangong-2, or "Heavenly Palace-2," will be the country's second space lab to be deployed above earth.

"Tiangong-2 will launch in the third quarter of this year. It will carry out various space scientific and application experiments," said Wu Ping, Deputy Director of China Manned Space Program Office.

If the launch is successful, the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft will follow shortly carrying 2 astronauts, who'll spend 30 days in orbit- a new record for China.

China aims to build own space station by 2020

But that's only part of the bigger picture. China's greater goal is to build its very own space station by 20-20 and it looks to be on course, to do just this.

"It takes numerous launches and docks to finish the ultimate goal. We will organize a series of missions from the middle of this year to the first half of next year," said Wu.

Tiangong-2 is a prototype for a space station. Its predecessor Tiangong-1 has been in orbit for nearly five years. In 2012 and 2013, manned spacecraft successfully docked with the space lab.

"The difference is Tiangong-2 is a space station in a real sense. Technical adjustments have been made based on experience and data from Tiangong One- which will continue scientific missions," said Wu.

Preparations are also underway for China's FIRST cargo spaceship, which is set to launch next year and dock with Tiangong 2.

Wu also said:"It will test key technologies in the construction and operation of a space station, such as cargo transportation, and propellant supply in orbit."

The international space station is scheduled to retire by 2020, when China is on course to become the only country with a permanent presence in space.

World's most sensitive 'eye' - Chinese experts develop best rendezvous and docking CCD Sensor

BEIJING, June 22 2015 (Xinhua) -- Chinese space experts have developed the world's most sensitive "eye" that enables the autonomous rendezvous and docking of two spacecraft -- flying eight times faster than bullets -- more efficiently and safely.

The "eye" is China's newly developed third-generation rendezvous and docking CCD optical imaging sensor. It will be used on China's second orbiting space lab, Tiangong-2, the Chang'e-5 lunar probe and the permanent manned space station, according to China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).

China plans to launch Tiangong-2 in 2016, and send Chang'e-5 to collect samples from the moon and return to earth around 2017. It also aims to put a permanent manned space station into service around 2022.

"Good 'eyesight' is crucial for one spacecraft chasing another for hundreds of thousands of kilometers to achieve a perfect rendezvous and docking -- it's like threading the needle," says Gong Dezhu, a CAST designer who worked on the CCD optical imaging sensor.

"The last 150 meters between the two spacecraft is the most critical moment. A slight deviation during docking might lead to a disaster like the one caused by Mann, the main antagonist in the movie Interstellar," Gong says.

Compared with the CCD optical imaging sensor used in the docking of Tiangong-1 and the Shenzhou spacecraft, the new "eye" can see clearer under direct sunlight, which will greatly improve safety. The window period of the docking process will be twice the length, Gong says.

"And the reaction time between the 'eye' capturing the first sight of its target and recognizing it has been shortened from 10 seconds to less than one second," Gong says.

The sensor's weight and power consumption is only half that of comparable products internationally, says Gong.

Such "eyes" can also be used on mechanical arms, and for refueling and repairing of spacecraft, as well as aerial refueling and docking of underwater vehicles, experts say. - Xinhua

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