Will China's first human space launch be a success?

I think this is really exciting, I hope they pull it off without any problems. This will serve as a major motivation for our own space program which needs a major kick-start.

http://space.com/missionlaunches/taikonaut_arrival_031013.html

Three 'Taikonauts' Arrive for China Spaceflight
By Joe McDonald
Associated Press
13 October 2003

BEIJING (AP) -- The three final candidates to be China's first astronaut in space have arrived at the spacecraft's desert launch pad, the government said Monday, and suggested that only one will make the trip.

XinhuaNet, the Web site of the government's official news agency, said in a brief dispatch that the three finalists had arrived at northwestern China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Xinhua cited "informed sources."

It said the ``No. 1 astronaut'' among them would make the flight -- the firmest indication yet that the Shenzhou 5 capsule will carry only one passenger.

China has scheduled its landmark first manned spaceflight for sometime between Wednesday and Friday, though many state-controlled newspapers have said it would be Wednesday. The craft is expected to orbit the Earth 14 times before returning.

A successful trip would make China the planet's third spacefaring nation, after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

The Xinhua report said the three finalists arrived at Jiuquan on Sunday, the day the space center was featured in Chinese media. XInhua said they were to undergo final testing Tuesday to determine who makes the flight.

The Shenzhou is based on the three-seat Russian Soyuz capsule, which had prompted suggestions that China might send up as many as three astronauts. But outside experts and Chinese news reports say the first flight is likely to carry only one.

Chinese media has stepped up publicity for the space flight, filling newspapers and Web sites with pictures of the launch base and student model-rocket builders.

After months of official silence, the government confirmed Friday that it would make the flight and that the capsule would circle the planet 14 times.

Over the weekend, state media started churning out publicity that included descriptions of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, a former oasis stop on the ancient Silk Road whose status as a space center was once a closely guarded secret.

A photo by the official Xinhua News Agency used Monday by newspapers and Web sites showed what Xinhua said was the Long March rocket for the flight on its pad in Jiuquan. The rocket itself wasn't visible behind the launch tower.

Photos in Beijing newspapers showed teenagers launching model rockets at a weekend event to mark the Chinese capital's 21st annual Junior High School Love Science Month.

The coverage is a sharp departure for the secretive, military-linked program, whose silence forced Chinese newspapers to pass along unconfirmed, sometimes conflicting reports.

The outpouring of information fueled the enthusiasm of China's public for the launch and its pioneering, though still anonymous, pilot.

"Of course he'll be a hero. He'll be as famous as Lei Feng," said Luo Yongjun, a Beijing resident, referring to a Chinese soldier who was lionized by the Communist Party's propaganda machine in the 1960s as a model of selfless revolutionary virtue.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20031006/china.html

China's 1st Manned Launch Next Week
Irene Mona Klotz, Discovery News

Oct. 10, 2003 — China is poised to launch its first crew into space next week, becoming just the third nation in history to be able to transport people off the planet.

Though the voyage comes 42 years after a political contest which drove the former Soviet Union and the United States into orbit, the Chinese view its flight as part of a long-term plan to explore and develop space.

A Chinese Shenzhou 5 spaceship, which means "divine vessel," is scheduled for launch as early as Wednesday morning from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center near the Gobi desert, the government's official news agency Xinhua reported Friday.

The mission is scheduled to last for 14 orbits, or about 21 hours.

The exact number of taikonauts — a nickname stemming from the Chinese word for space — taking part in the flight has not yet been released. The flight follows four unmanned test flights and more than a decade of research and development. China's spacecraft is modeled on the Russian Soyuz vehicle. Russia also provided training to a cadre of Chinese astronauts.

China has repeatedly stated that its goal is to develop a space station and perhaps a base on the moon.

"It'll be nice for someone else to enter the fray," said four-time shuttle commander and former NASA manager Charles Bolden, who recently retired as a Marine brigadier general.

China's entry into the elite world of space-faring nations comes at a time when the United States' manned space program is grounded, due to the Feb. 1 Columbia accident.

"It's ironic that it's happening at a time when we're powerless to do anything," Bolden said. "We can only watch. Here we are, the lone superpower in the world and we cannot get into space right now."

 

I think this is an image from Voyager 1, occasionally Nasa would spin the cameras around and shoot some photos of the solar system as the probe passed the orbit of Neptune.

Here is a link to our solar system as viewed from 4 billion miles, there are better computer enhanced versions but these are the raw images. None of the planets are in the correct places, but you get an idea of how tiny even our entire solar system is from just several billion miles away...

http://www.solarviews.com/raw/misc/vgr_fam3.gif

I really need to start posting pics again, anyone have an easy suggestion besides imagestation and digital pose? Thx.

 

Looks like they are good to go tomorrow...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/979759.asp?vts=101420030658

JUST CARRYING a Chinese citizen into space for parades in Beijing is only the start. That trick would wear out pretty quickly.
If that were all that was needed, Shenzhou is much too complicated. China actually began development of a very limited one-person manned space capsule 20 years ago, and even began training astronauts. But when it became clear that the expensive vehicle wouldn’t be able to carry out any really useful missions in space, it was canceled.

The Shenzhou spacecraft and its support systems are obviously designed for more than that, and to carry out specific complex missions. It’s clear that future missions will carry three crewmen, fly for extended periods, support testing of spacewalks and orbital dockings, carry specialized science and technological equipment, and move toward deployment of a Chinese space station similar to Russia’s venerable Mir (1986-2001).

We suspect this, because Chinese officials in more serious moments and properly translated interviews have said as much. But we can also believe it, because they have built the Shenzhou hardware with features that make sense only when used for exactly those missions.

For example, look at the solar panels mounted on the craft’s service module and on its orbital module. They provide three times the power used on the Russian Soyuz, which acts merely as a ferryboat from Earth to a space station and back. Shenzhou’s orbital missions will be more sophisticated than that.

Moreover, Shenzhou’s solar arrays, unlike those on Soyuz, can rotate to track the sun while the spacecraft itself is aligned for other purposes, such as Earth observation or long-term microgravity drifting flight. The Russians did put rotating solar panels on another of their manned spacecraft, their Salyut-class space stations, and for exactly this same reason.

And Chinese engineers have mounted a pair of solar panels on the orbital module, which in the Russian Soyuz variant has none, because it is discarded after the crew returns to Earth. Instead, on Shenzhou missions the orbital module remains behind in orbit as a mini-space station with long-term experiments of its own.

Earlier this year, Chinese space official Zhang Qinqwei told People’s Daily that these modules remain in space “to lay a foundation for China’s second-step manned spaceflight project — forming a docking link between a spacecraft and another flight vehicle.”

To do this, the hatch between the orbital module and the descent module must be closed with a special-shaped conical target so that a docking probe on the nose of the next Shenzhou can capture it. The orbital module from the new Shenzhou would then be permanently attached to the one that had been left in space on the previous mission. When we see this in photographs, we’ll know what it means.

This process could continue mission by mission, with several of the modules linked sausage-style to create a small lab with impressive electrical power capabilities. A magazine article in 2002 described such a facility: “After it succeeds in manned spaceflight, China will very soon launch a cosmic experimental capsule capable of catering to astronauts’ short stays.”...

 

There are some news organizations/websites pushing the negatives as much as the positives of the Chinese launch. Global Security.org is one that seems to push the ideas simultaneously that this is a non-issue (we did this 40 years ago) but Chinese advancements in space could become major threat to the US both economically and militarily. The articles they choose to feature balance a fine line between praising the Chinese program and warning of the possible dangers if they are not kept in check.

The New York Times
China Ready for Human Spaceflight
In-Depth Coverage
By William J. Broad

When Moscow put the first humans into space 42 years ago, Soviet officials raised a veil of secrecy. They made sure the genius behind the feat was a nonperson, awarding his medals in private. They lied about the spaceport's location. And they said the heroic astronaut had landed his spacecraft, when in fact he had ejected from his capsule high in the atmosphere and parachuted back to earth.

Now, as China prepares to become the third nation to fire a person into space, perhaps as soon as Wednesday morning Beijing time, the differences are telling.

Secrecy remains. But the Chinese have also opened sophisticated Web sites that promote their space hardware. Government agencies hand out glossy images of rockets and capsules. And Western experts have learned enough information about the Chinese technology to spend endless hours analyzing the nuances of the impending flight.

Space analysts say the openness shows that Chinese astronaut gear is basically an adaptation of Russian rocket and capsule designs, though much improved. "It's extremely surprising how much China has revealed," said Phillip S. Clark, a top expert on the Chinese space program. "This is full throttle compared to what they used to do."

When John E. Pike, a space analyst in Washington, wanted to pinpoint the Chinese launching site, he said, he turned to an official Chinese rocket manual, which put the Jiuquan Space Center in the Gansu Province of northwestern China, on the edge of the Gobi Desert.

"It's far less secretive than the Soviet space program," Mr. Pike said. Why? Mainly, he said, because of Beijing's drive to sell space technologies. "They have to talk to people in order to sell their products."

Analysts say the new openness, in addition to revealing the Russian aid, shows that the Chinese have worked hard to make their rockets more reliable — a major requirement for human flight — after suffering a series of disasters in unpiloted flights roughly a decade ago.

The improvements came from toil as well as American companies eager to use Chinese rockets for launching satellites, the analysts said. Ultimately, the United States, worried that such aid could improve nuclear-armed missiles, fined the companies heavily for helping Beijing.

Chinese officials deny that their space program greatly depends on foreigners and tend to laugh off the American accusations.

Whatever the truth, experts agree, the bottom line is that China is now entering the astronaut game with some notable high cards as well as the world's fastest-growing economy. The flight's timing is linked to celebrations of the Communist revolution.

In Washington, the politics of an unblemished voyage are expected to be fairly significant because the space shuttles are now grounded, creating an impression that some aspects of space leadership are passing to another power.

"It's not going to restart the space race," said James E. Oberg, a NASA veteran who wrote about the Chinese astronaut program in this month's Scientific American. "But it adds some instability and excitement to an arena that's been fairly boring."

If the launching is successful, people in parts of the United States should be able to see the Chinese craft moving across a dark night sky like a star adrift. Four unpiloted test flights flew with an inclination to the Equator of 42 to 43 degrees, meaning that they traveled as far north as that latitude.

New York City is at a north latitude of 41 degrees, so the craft in theory could fly within its view if it follows the path of its predecessors.

Whether it does depends on sky conditions, the orbit's inclination and its duration. The longer the voyage, the greater the chance it will pass within visual range of particular ground sites.

"Even a short flight should cross the United States six or seven times," said Charles P. Vick, an expert on the Chinese space program at GlobalSecurity.org, a research group based in Alexandria, Va.

Space analysts said Beijing's effort to send humans into orbit began in earnest about a decade ago and was at first quite secretive, code-named Project 921. The cold war was just over and the impoverished Russians were cutting deals. So the Chinese, experts said, bought part of a Soyuz, a standard Russian spacecraft for transporting people.

It was no man-in-a-can, a description apt for early American models. Back to front, the Soyuz has a propulsion unit, a pressurized capsule for up to three people during assent and descent, and a forward module where astronauts can work. Even today, Russia uses the Soyuz routinely for ferrying astronauts to space outposts, and the Chinese obviously had the same objective in mind.

"They didn't buy a whole Soyuz," said Mr. Clark, who writes space books and articles from Britain. "It was a descent module stripped of innards, so mostly a shell." The Chinese also bought a life-support system, he added, and a pressurized suit for wearing inside the spacecraft.

Experts said the Chinese carefully studied and adapted Russian gear to their own needs. "They had to build and test and prove everything themselves," said Mr. Oberg, who lives near Houston. "So most of the similarities are superficial. The one exception is the suit. It copies the Russian design down to the stitching pattern."

The Chinese named their spacecraft Shenzhou or Divine Vessel. Weighing more than 8 tons and almost 30 feet long, it was slightly larger and heavier than the Soyuz. The main difference is the forward unit, which on the Shenzhou has solar panels and can remain in orbit after the piloted module descends back to Earth.

Even as China readied a home for astronauts, it worked hard to design a new type of Long March rocket to hurl Shenzhou into orbit. Beijing also found itself forced to confront the ticklish, potentially deadly issue of rocket dependability.

Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995, and twice in 1996, according to Chinese figures. It was a real crisis, given Beijing's interest in winning orders for satellite launchings and its ambitions for Chinese citizens in space.

American companies, including giants like Hughes, the world's largest maker of communications satellites, helped iron out the problems. This March, Boeing, which acquired Hughes Space and Communications, agreed to pay a record $32 million in fines to settle federal charges that the two companies had unlawfully transferred rocket and satellite data to China. The penalty was said to be the largest ever for an arms export case.

Bruce Berkowitz, a space analyst in Washington, minimized the episode in a paper for the Hoover Institution, saying the American companies made no effort to hide their assistance because they believed they were doing no wrong. He added that the technology at issue was trivial.

"The Chinese," he said, "probably gave away more technological secrets than they acquired from the U.S. companies." Other Western experts disagreed, saying the disclosures were quite significant.

No matter what, Beijing's work improved. Experts said the Chinese had suffered no major launching failures since the two of 1996.

A few months after the rocket dust settled, in October 1996, the Chinese formally announced plans to launch people into orbit. Late that year, two Chinese astronauts began training in Russia, and in turn trained a dozen others back in China.

In June 1999, photographs began to circulate publicly of a new Long March rocket for astronauts, Mr. Clark said. Known as the 2F, it stood 19 stories high. Its top bore a small escape tower whose rockets could fire and pull the astronauts to safety if the main vehicle failed in the countdown or early stages of the flight.

Mr. Vick of GlobalSecurity.org examined images of the Jiuquan Space Center and found that the rocket's assembly building was some 32 stories high. From there, the rocket rolls to a nearby launching pad.

Shenzhou first flew in 1999, with follow-up flights in 2001, 2002 and early 2003. The first mission lasted 21 hours, experts said, and the latter ones about 7 days. The flights became increasingly complex, with changes in orbit and practice moves for docking with other spacecraft.

A mystery surrounding the first piloted flight, known as Shenzhou 5, is how many astronauts will fly: one, two or three. The mission's length is to be about a day. Experts said the descent module, in theory, can be refurbished and fired back into space.

Analysts expect the Chinese to chart an increasingly bold course, first practicing linking up Shenzhou modules and ships together in orbit, then building a space outpost and using the craft to ferry astronauts.

Within a decade, Mr. Oberg said, China's space efforts may eclipse those of the Russia and the European Space Agency. If so, he added, the United States could find itself facing a new kind of space competition. "They're going to be in the top echelon of an exclusive club," Mr. Oberg said. "And they're not going to retrace everybody's steps. For much of that time, the other countries were going in circles."

Beijing officials talk of sending astronauts to the Moon and of planting a colony on Mars. "Down the road, it will become quite important to the White House," Mr. Vick predicted. "People are going to have to make a decision of how to take on this challenge."

http://globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/031014-china-spaceflight01.htm