China plans space station with module launch in 2010
1 hr 59 mins ago
China plans space station with module launch in 2010 AFP/Xinhua/File – Chinese astronauts at an event in the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China's Gansu …
BEIJING (AFP) – China will launch a space module next year and carry out the nation's first space docking in 2011 as a step towards its goal of building a space station, state media said Sunday.
The Tiangong-1, or "Heavenly Palace-1" is scheduled for launch in late 2010 and will dock with a Shenzhou-8 spacecraft early the following year, Xinhua news agency said, citing officials with China's space programme.
"The module, named Tiangong-1, is designed to provide a 'safe room' for Chinese astronauts to live and conduct scientific research in zero gravity," the report said.
"Weighing about 8.5 tonnes, Tiangong-1 is able to perform long-term unattended operation, which will be an essential step toward building a space station."
Space programme officials have previously said China is expected to place in orbit several modules like the Tiangong and link them up to form a semi-permanent space platform.
It was not immediately clear if the Tiangong-1 would eventually serve as China's first manned space station, or whether it would only be a platform to test docking and space station technology.
The planned 2011 space docking would be remotely carried out by scientists on the ground and would not involve astronauts, the report said.
China became the third nation to put a man in space when Yang Liwei piloted the one-man Shenzhou-5 space mission in 2003.
Last September, the Shenzhou-7, piloted by three "taikonauts" or astronauts, carried out China's first space walk.
Several prototypes of the Tiangong would be built this year, while upgrades to the carrier rocket that will launch the module into space would also be carried out, the report said.
Following the Shenzhou-8 flight, China also hopes to begin the mass production of Shenzhou spacecraft which will be used to transport astronauts to the space station, it said.
The International Space Station commenced with the launch into orbit of the first station element, a Russian-built module on November 20, 1998.
It orbits some 350 kilometres (190 miles) above the earth's surface with a permanent crew of three astronauts who remain aboard for stays lasting several months.
And so china's space program continues to advance. Hopefully their sucesses will prompt a second Space Race.
Zor
Corrected your typo. ~S
HAIL ZOR!WE'LL BLOW UP THE OCEAN!
Heros of Cybertron-HAB-Keeper of the Vicious pit of Allosauruses-King Leighton-I, United Kingdom of Zoria: SD.net World/Tsar Mikhail-I of the Red Tsardom: SD.net Kingdoms WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE ON EARTH, ALL EARTH BREAKS LOOSE ON HELL Terran Sphere The Art of Zor
From my knowledge (what little there is) China has expressed some interest. At the time the ISS was agreed to, didn't China space program consisted of plans and most likely building the stuff to send a man into space, but at that stage no success yet. So perhaps it might have been overlooked.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Where does China get the money for this program? I heard that their space budget is tiny compared to the US's.
China is an inherently cheaper place to do things, they aren’t spending money on anything like the space shuttle, they aren’t supporting the ISS boondoggle and they are concentrating mainly on manned spaceflight with relatively few unmanned probes. Just orbiting a one module space station in comparison is cheap compared to everything NASA does.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Samuel wrote:Where does China get the money for this program? I heard that their space budget is tiny compared to the US's.
They don't have to spend money like that spent on the International Space Station.
Total money put into government agencies and contractors for the ISS is a dozen times as much as the prior U.S. Skylab spacestation despite considering inflation over the years.
China's existing CZ rockets cost no more than about $70 million each for the variant able to launch up to 10 tons LEO. (Go to Encyclopedia Astronautix if curious for details). So we can guess the new CZ-NGLV under development to launch a bit larger payloads and their spacestation in 2010 wouldn't be more than a fraction of a billion dollars max per rocket.
Throw in the expense of the spacestation module itself plus all else, and the Chinese still wouldn't have to spend anything remotely close to the $150 billion plus of the ISS.
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China's first lunar probe landed on the moon in a controlled collision Sunday, marking the first phase of the nation's three-stage moon mission, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The second stage involves sending a second probe to practice soft landings, the Xinhua news agency said.
The mission will culminate with the launch and landing of a rover on the moon to collect mineral samples in 2012.
The probe -- Chang'e-1, named after a legendary moon goddess -- launched into space 16 months ago on October 24, 2007.
China became only the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to send a manned spacecraft into orbit. It did so in October 2003.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Vehrec wrote:It took this probe 16 months to get to the moon? How the hell does that work?
Oh no. Google or wikipedia it. The probe reached the Moon in a couple weeks (fast enough for an unmanned probe without need to use any extra fuel to rush it) in late 2007. Until now it has been orbiting the Moon. Yet, with its mission done, they crashed it into the Moon at the end yesterday.
I do see the news story was confusing, though. They said:
China's first lunar probe landed on the moon in a controlled collision Sunday, marking the first phase of the nation's three-stage moon mission, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The intentional crash marks the end of that probe's part of the first phase of the nation's three-stage moon mission, but they were talking about it like it was the very beginning.
Vehrec wrote:It took this probe 16 months to get to the moon? How the hell does that work?
This is entirely unrelated, but ESA's SMART-1 probe took fourteen months to make the Earth-to-Moon trip. This is because it was using an ion drive, instead of a conventional rocket.