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China To Snap 4 Space Ships Into a Station
hackingbear writes "According to a report by Hong Kong newspaper Mingpao Daily (poor Google translation), quoting the Director of Jiuquan Launch Center, China is set to build a space station by snapping together four spaceships (Shenzhou 7, 8, 9, and 10), to be launched sequentially. Though other reports indicates that taikonauts abroad SZ 7 will return to Earth on September 28, the official said the ship will remain in the orbit to be docked with unmanned Shenzhou 8 and 9. Finally, the manned spaceship Shenzhou 10 will be launched and dock with the other three, completing the space station." A story at Space.com also briefly mentions Shenzhous 8 and 9 (with no mention of number 10), and adds that
China has selected its first spacewalker.
They must be talking about leaving the Hab/Orbital module on orbit for SZ7. Since ShenZhou is a modernized Soyuz, it's fairly simple. The pressurized top module has independent RCS thrusters and is designed to act as a satellite after detaching from the descent module. The previous SZ flights have included experiments and observation packages that continued long after crew return - this is a logical extension of that concept. The article refers to SZ7 as a "target vehicle" - guarantee that is referring only to the orbital module.
IIRC, the Chinese were shopping around a "long node" station design a decade ago - this is the operational version of those viewgraphs.
Unless they plan to dock the orbital modules in sequence, one of the vehicles must include a Node - my guess is SZ8 but it could be 9, these are both uncrewed so that helps with the mass of additional docking adapters.
j
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
First country to establish a permanent lunar base?
First country to establish a permanent martian colony?
I know where my money is riding.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
They want their own space station in order to technologically advance their country, and because we told them to piss off when they offered to contribute to the ISS (Which kind of throws the 'international' bit out the window). None of the reasons you suggest have anything to do with it.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
And that's one of the biggest fears among some of us right now, that the US may wake up one morning and find that it has pissed away its advantage. I'm hoping that the opposite happens, that some real competition to the current American-Russian space alliance will convince Washington that there is something very real and tangible to be lost here.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Both SkyLab and this station are supposed to be disposable - besides, you simply attach a new segment each time you need to and exhaust that segments fuel supply boosting it to a good orbit.