Questions tagged [china]
Questions regarding Chinese politics, people, and space programs and their relation to space exploration.
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Was it possible for the Chinese to send a rocket using gunpower past the Karman line?
The Chinese invented the first rocket. Their rockets were fireworks using gunpower to fly which usually only flew a few hundred meters. I was wondering if it were possible with the technology of ...
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Why does Q-SAT look like a buckyball?
Tech.China.Com.cn's August 7, 2020 article Tsinghua University Successfully Launched Gravity and Atmospheric Science Satellite (Chinese, title translated to English) includes the image above of what I ...
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How does Jonathan McDowell know that Chinese tracking could not possibly have determined a closest approach of 14.5 meters between two space objects?
Space News' Chinese satellite in near miss with Russian ASAT test debris links to the announcement below, and quotes "satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell" poo-pooing the claimed closest ...
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How to make diamagnetic lunar simulant that would "float" in a strong enough magnetic field? (for China's 60 cm high field simulator)
Live Science's China builds 'artificial moon' for gravity experiment says:
Chinese scientists have built an "artificial moon" research facility that will enable them to simulate low-gravity ...
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What was the flight path of China's hypersonic missile that circumnavigated sometime in summer 2021?
I read on CNN:
China's test of a hypersonic missile over the summer [2021] "went around the world," the second most senior US general said in an interview released Tuesday, shedding new ...
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What is the current status of space laser communication (lasercom) in Russia and China?
Space-based laser communications (Free Space Optics) is making a dent in the field of satcom, but as always news from the East doesn't seem to make much appearance in English-speaking media.
From ...
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What is the Chinese hypersonic capability? (supersonic test orbited the Earth in August, long march rocket & JF22 supersonic wind tunnel)
Current news cycle is reporting the Chinese supersonic missile capable rocket that orbited earth in August. The various news reports are extremely light on details.
Some info on the long march series.
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What flag is flying over the landing site of the Shenzhou 12 crew astronauts returning from Tiangong? What does it say?
NBC News has a short video clip Astronauts Return After 90-day Mission To China's Space Station
A trio of Chinese astronauts touched down in the Gobi Desert after completing China's longest space ...
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Cartoon-like characters on the side of the Tianwen-1 Mars lander?
Scott Manley's excellent new video China's Mars Rover Zhurong Has Completed Its Primary Mission, Reaches New Milestone is chock-full of space-sleuthing goodies and interesting information about the ...
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Is NASA's Deep Space Network possibly a backup link for China's Zhurong rover?
While the Tianwen-1 orbiter will dispense commands to the Zhurong rover, the Mars Express orbiter of the European Space Agency will serve as a backup.
Wikipedia
Since Mars Express normally ...
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What CPU does China's Zhurong rover use?
The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, and the InSight lander, all use the BAE RAD750 processor.
The Ingenuity helicopter uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor.
The only other active spacecraft on ...
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How (the heck) is it possible that with China's future 6G satellite network I'll be able to download 1000 movies per second?
The reasonably credible Wall Street Journal has a YouTube channel and the new video SpaceX vs. China: The Quest for Satellite Internet | WSJ says that with Starlink's data rate I can download a 1 Gb ...
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The Chinese Mars rover and lander can be seen in the same picture. What device took the photo?
The China Space News Agency published an image showing the Chinese Mars rover and lander in the same photograph.
What camera took the picture?
Source: CNSA
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Is there independent evidence that China landed a robot on Mars in May 2021?
I would like to know if there is independent evidence of any kind that China landed a robot on Mars in May 2021?
As of May 16, 2021, the last news on CNSA (China National Space Administration) site is ...
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Does China pay for damages caused by deorbiting space junk?
When China launches a big rocket, they apparently don't control the deorbit and there are large enough pieces to strike the surface and even cause damage to buildings, as happened in the Ivory Coast ...
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What is or are the official English names for the eventual space station being built by China, and of the first module that's in orbit now?
China has launched the first module of a space station and plans to have astronauts inside it to start woking in about a month.
In Astronomy SE they've already started calling it the "Chinese ...
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Was the launch of "Tianhe" a failure or success?
Recently on April 29 2021, Chinese space program launched Tianhe as part of Tiangong space station. In launch section it states the mission was failure:
Tianhe launched on 29 April 2021, at 03:23:15 ...
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Does Tianwen-1 have a near-repeat ground track orbit in order to scan the same general area on each of its low altitude passes?
Though it's not as easy1 to get details on Chinese missions in English, it seems that Tianwen-1 is in a 12,000 x 256 km highly eccentric orbit around Mars, with its hi res cameras able to resolve 0.5 ...
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How did Argentina, Namibia, and Pakistan help China monitor and communicate with Chang'e 5?
At the end of The Hill's article Chinese official unveils future moon mission plans including possible lunar base it says:
The most recent Chang'e 5 probe was assisted by the European Space Agency, ...
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What will happen to Chang’e 5 orbiter?
What will happen to the Chang’e 5 orbiter which will return the collected samples to earth? Will it burn up in the atmosphere like Hayabusa, or is an extented mission planned?
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How does China (CASC or CAST) solve Groundsegment?
I was studying Queqiao space mission and I found a lot about how is Tracking, Telemetry and Command or TT&C solved for space component, but not how is secured Space-Ground connectivity - what type ...
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Is the Ceres-1 the first Chinese rocket that was given an official Romanized name?
The news feed in the The Pod Bay links to NASA Spacelfight's 2020-11-08 news item Introducing China’s new commercial rocket, Ceres-1.
China’s latest commercial rocket, the Ceres-1 (Gushenxing-1) ...
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Chinese launch site locations [duplicate]
As far as I can find, 3 out of 4 launch sites that the Chinese space program uses are far inland with launch trajectories that go over populated areas. This strikes me as odd, because unlike Russia, ...
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Did the US hide 4179 Toutatis orbital data after China announced intentions of going there?
Recently I've been reading about a bit of Chinese space stuff and I found the accusation that the US hid orbital data for the asteroid 4179 Toutatis after China announced that they planned to send ...
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Why has China been slow in phasing out CZ-2,3,4?
China has had plans of phasing out CZ-2,3,4 that stretch back to at least 2006, with aims of developing the YF-100, YF-77 to create a new family of cryogenic launchers (CZ-5,6,7,8) that would launch ...
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Where can I find access to information provided by CNSA and Chinese scientists and reputable science authors?
The lack of finality to the current answer to Was Queqiao in a halo or Lissajous orbit? Why do sources disagree? is due in part to the difficulty of finding good, clear, reliable scientific sources ...
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Was Queqiao in a halo or Lissajous orbit? Why do sources disagree?
Wikipedia's Lissajous orbit says that sources disagree on the nature of Queqiao relay satellite's orbit; if it was in a proper halo orbit or just a Lissajous orbit.
Proper halo orbits have the same ...
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Why do the Chinese launch most of their rockets so far from the coast?
We know that launching rockets near the coast is safe for human settlement areas in case a failure occurs. But, why does China launch its rockets so far from the coast (near hills)? Many launch sites ...
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For the upcoming Chinese Spaceplane launch, will the spaceplane be delivered directly into a LEO?
China are planning on launching an experimental spaceplane with a NET June launch date, which is likely the Tengfei-1. For this launch it will be launching on the Long March 2F. However in 2030 the ...
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Is it realistic to assume the Chinese Long March 5b "just missed New York"?
The Chinese successfully launched a Long March 5b... that apparently fell off the West Coast of Africa
On Monday, a massive, out-of-control Chinese rocket fell out of the sky off the west coast of ...
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How close to Guam did China's recent Long March 5's first stage fall?
Jonathan McDowell'sTweet and Tweet say
Two objects cataloged from the CZ-5 launch: 180 x 67690 km x 19.4 deg, and 203 x 73395 km x 19.4 deg. One is the SJ-20 comms satellite and the other is the ...
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Comparing Long March 5's CZ-5-300 RP-1/LOX booster to Falcon 9 first stage; similar Isp's but very different relative volumes
Wikipedia's CZ-5-300 and Falcon 9 Full Thrust provide the following rough figures.
...
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Are Longjiang 1 and 2 the only spacecraft to image the far side of the Moon in a single frame with detail?
The image below, found in Was this the first-ever photo of a full moon very close to lunar new year? (and used here also) where it was credited to New photo of Lunar farside and Earth was taken by the ...
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What is the purpose and necessity of this giant structure being used in tests of China's Mars lander?
Question: What is the purpose and necessity of this giant structure being used in tests of landing hovering and searching techniques to be used by China's Mars lander? It is shown in images (and a ...
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Did CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang see the ISS during an EVA?
This answer to Has an astronaut ever seen another object in LEO pass by that wasn't mission-related? says:
The encounter happened at longer distances ($\sim47\;km$) and the Shenzhou-7 is smaller than ...
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Where on Mars will China's rover land?
Inspired by this question about all the missions to Mars in 2020, where on this planet will the rover of the mission that China has planned, land and operate ?
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China, UAE and US all sending missions to Mars in 2020 (Summer of L̶o̶v̶e Mars); how far apart are their frequencies?
Gizmodo's Second failure of ExoMars parachute test throws schedule in jeopardy says:
ExoMars 2020 is due to launch during a narrow window open between July 25th to August 13th 2020, during which ...
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Are these statements about "a first use of grid fins by China" simply wrong?
Ars Technica's Rocket Report: China discovers grid fins, NASA acknowledges Starship program says:
China experiments with grid fins. The launch of a Long March 2C from Xichang last week included a ...
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Is there any asian company competing with SpaceX?
By Asian I mean India, China, Pakistan, Nepal, etc. I wish to know if there is any company which could possibly develop technical know-how and actually launch something to LEO at least on it's own.
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Does the Long March-11 increase its thrust after clearing the launch tower?
The NASA Spaceflight article China conducts first Sea Launch mission with Long March 11 launch of seven satellites links to the YouTube video China’s first sea launch: Long March-11 launches from a ...
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How does the US's 2008 debris cloud compare to India's 2019 and China's 2007 contributions?
The NPR News article NASA: Debris From India's Anti-Satellite Test Raised Threat To Space Station discusses last week's antisatellite test by India described further in answers to India just shot down ...
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Do space stations have standardized officer designations for crew?
I have some anecdotal information. The ISS has a commander, and I noticed here that it had a Flight Engineer, and in this article (found here) I see that Skylab had a Science Pilot.
Do space stations ...
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What are Longjian's "UV antennas" and "UV transciever" really?
The 15-Oct-2018 Planetary Society post Imaging the Earth from Lunar orbit shows an image of one of the Longjiang spacecraft (also known as DSLWP-B) where were carried with Chang'e-4 to the Moon and ...
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Where is that lunar-grown cotton seed sprout?
Most of us have seen this picture of the cotton seed currently sprouting inside a Chinese lander on the far side of the moon:
Source
The image shows see a plastic grid with a gelatinous overlay of ...
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How did Chang'e-4 hover, rotate, and then descend so gracefully? (Video)
In this incredible video we can see Chang'e-4 in it's final approach and landing on the moon from the point of view of the spacecraft.
The view is horizontal as the spacecraft seems to stop and hover ...
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What spacecraft components are in the foreground of this image of the Earth and Moon? What is the camera inside of?
This tweet shows the image below, and says:
Finally, some images from Queqiao, the relay satellite for the Chang'e-4 far side mission, showing the Earth and Moon! Queqiao is in a halo orbit at a ...
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What radio frequency does China use to communicate with the Chang'e-4 satellite?
I would assume this probably isn't publically disclosed information, but it doesn't hurt to ask. I am an amateur ham radio enthusiast and I want to listen in on the data.
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Transmission time per day for Chang'e 4?
Congratulations for the sucessfull landing on the back side of the Moon.
There is continuous line of site available for radio connection from the lander to the Queqiao relay satellite at the Earth-...
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Launch Vehicle LM2D
As it is well known, the circularization of orbits needs at least 3 stages.
How could the Chinese launch vehicle LM2D circularizes its orbit with only 2 stages?
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Will Chang'e-4 really take a month to "get to the Moon"? With what trajectory?
The Verge's This weekend, China embarks on a historic mission to land on the far side of the Moon says (near the end):
We know that the mission is set to launch on top of one of China’s Long March 3B ...
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