Chapter 288 Manned Flight
Texas.
A C17 transport plane landed at the military airport here, and a truck covered with white cloth and the logo of the Canadian Space Agency drove out. There was a line of small words below: "Canadaarm3"
The "Canada-3" robotic arm, which is equipped with the first part of the "Gateway" space station in the Artemis plan, HALO (habitation and logistics outpost), was manufactured in advance and arrived at the Texas assembly base.
The HALO module has a mass of 8 tons and is the core part of the "Gateway".
The current Gateway space station has roughly four confirmed parts:
PPE (power and propulsion element), which provides propulsion and is manufactured by AXAR;
HALO (habitation outpost), together with I-HAB, provides 8 cubic meters of space for 4 people to live, manufactured by Northrop Grumman;
I-HAB (international habitation module), manufactured by ESA;
HLS (lunar lander), temporarily manufactured by Blue Origin, may also be a StarShip starship in the future.
The science, airlock and extended logistics modules are still under discussion, but of the first four parts, PPE and HALO have been completed and can be sent to the lunar orbit after installing the robotic arm.
The two parts weigh 13 tons in total and will be launched using the heavy Falcon rocket. The launch date has been set for mid-January.
At Cape Caravelle, Lao Ma squinted his eyes and watched a Falcon 9 that had been reused four times send four satellites from Singapore, Australia and Japan into the sky. He was excited for a while and then suddenly stopped.
The excitement is that the reusable technology of Falcon 9 is becoming more and more mature, and it is frantically sweeping orders in the international market. The outside world's valuation of SpecaX is getting higher and higher, and NACA continues to support it, and the development trend is extremely good.
Up to now, although the total launch quality is far inferior, the number of commercial order launches of specaX has exceeded that of New Prospect Aerospace Power by a large margin.
At this time, he couldn't help but feel a little fortunate about the Wolf Clause. New Prospect's external commercial orders for the space agency are limited to a small area around it. Although there are many, they are definitely not comparable to specaX.
Xinyuan's biggest advantage is manned launches. At least according to outside analysis, most of their income comes from commercial flights. The Unity and Resolute have maintained an average of one launch mission every 8 days in the past four months, sending 95 people into space in total, and the amount of completed tourism orders alone is as high as 900 million US dollars, or 6.03 billion yuan.
And there are a lot of people queuing up behind. What's even more outrageous is that there are more European rich people than Asians through the Oriental International Space Hotel Company, which is incredible.
There are also rumors that after the Alenia Space Company's space hotel is launched and docked with the Tiangong Space Station in 2017, the Oriental International Space Hotel will be reorganized and prepared for listing. The New York Stock Exchange predicts that its market value may be more than 50 billion US dollars, and the prospects are extremely optimistic.
In this regard, specaX plans to use the Falcon 9 rocket to combine with the Dream Chaser, and start a benchmark space tourism plan with Boeing, Grumman and other manufacturers. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
Starlink is also pretty good. With the Jingwei satellite network and several six-ton synchronous orbit satellites rotating overhead, NACA and the International Telecommunications Association fully support Starlink, and there is no problem with the launch. The first generation was quickly built.
The first generation of Starlink weighs 260 kilograms and is mainly used for testing, but because of the huge discovery of the Kum crater, Lao Ma decided to send it to the moon to provide navigation services in conjunction with the Artemis program.
But it is precisely on the moon that the Aerospace Development Commission is too far ahead.
Not to mention anything else, the eight rovers that have landed and the three landers equipped with a considerable amount of scientific research equipment have left the world far behind.
In fact, NACA and SpecaX are very interested in the technology of the Explorer robot. Half a year ago, the artificial intelligence laboratory composed of Google, MIT and NACA made several months of progress before they barely touched the door.
According to their research, it is not difficult to make an Explorer with existing technology, but it requires a lot of precipitation, but if it is on the moon, it is exaggerated, at least the power consumption of the chip is a troublesome matter.
The lab's schedule is to launch a robot as smart as the Explorer in 2018. It won't work any faster, as AI training takes time. For this reason, they also acquired Boston Dynamics.
They believe that ternary chips have huge advantages in AI, but it is too difficult to change direction at this time, so they still stick to the original route.
As for Tesla and SpecaX, they are just getting started in this regard.
After complex negotiations, the former's super factory in Shanghai finally reached an agreement to start construction in March next year. It is expected to be put into production in 2018, with an annual output of one million Tesla cars, but it is only a plan after all.
Musk stretched out his hand and ruffled his hair. Although he looked a bit like a fat otaku, it was very comfortable and allowed people to relax and think.
The first generation of the Raptor engine has been successful with the support of NACA, and the reliability has passed the acceptance. The production line is being established, which also means that the starship is about to enter the substantive construction stage.
The takeoff thrust of Starship-Super Heavy will exceed 6,000 tons. Although it is much smaller than the more than 7,000 tons of the New Yuan-3, both the boosters and the spacecraft are reusable, and generally speaking they are at the same level. It also significantly exceeds the Long March 10 and SLS rockets.
Starship is SpecaX's second reusable rocket project. Compared with Falcon 9, the difficulty is exponentially higher. Connecting 33 engines in parallel is an unprecedented challenge, but Musk is not afraid.
…
"What is this new generation of manned spacecraft called? It has not been named yet?"
"The Aerospace Development Commission is soliciting, and the whole society is involved. The results will be released in a month. Anyway, it's not too late."
At the Qiongzhou Space Launch Center, a Long March 7 rocket was erected, and on top of it was the new generation of manned spacecraft - the official version.
Androv was tossing the Pioneer here, and happened to chat with Academician She who came to the launch site.
The new generation of manned spacecraft has completed two unmanned flights so far, one was a suborbital atmospheric test ship in July, and the other was a full-state unmanned test ship carried by the Long March 10.
And today, on December 25, the third one was launched, which is also a manned version.
The Shenzhou spacecraft used four unmanned prototypes because it lacked experience in the first development and did not dare to take risks. The new generation of manned spacecraft is different. After careful demonstration, the Aerospace Development Commission decided to conduct a manned test mission before the end of the year.
The first flight mission will carry three experienced astronauts from the space agency. They will take the spacecraft to live in low-Earth orbit for about three days without docking with the space station to simulate the living conditions of flying from the earth to the moon during the moon landing.
Two months later, the Long March 10 Yao 2 mission will send a new generation of manned spacecraft to the moon, orbiting for about 15 days and returning. Because the YF-77GA is the first test flight, it will not carry people.
The Yao 3 mission will be a full-state lunar flight with a lunar lander and manned. In theory, it can already land on the moon, as the last rehearsal before the moon landing.
Academician She clenched his fists and suddenly felt that time was so fast.
Sending people to the moon in less than three years, is this the real strength of China's aerospace industry?
Due to inflammation of the eyes, I rested for 3 days and updated less. I will resume updating 3-4 chapters on Friday