Category: International

China's Human Spaceflight Program: Background and List of Launches

China's Human Spaceflight Program: Background and List of Launches

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 11, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 12, 2013 9:28 am ET

China’s human spaceflight program, Project 921, officially began in 1992. The launch of Shenzhou-10 today is the tenth flight in the series, but only the fifth to carry a crew.

Shenzhou 1-4 were automated tests of the spacecraft; Shenzhou-8 was an automated test of rendezvous and docking procedures with the Tiangong-1 space station. 

Tiangong-1 itself was launched in 2011.  It first hosted a crew with Shenzhou-9 and now awaits the crew of Shenzhou-10.   The following table provides information on the five Chinese human spaceflight missions with crews launched to date.  (A SpacePolicyOnline.com list of ALL Chinese human spaceflight launches, including the automated flights, is also available.) Chinese astronauts are often called “taikonauts” in the West.  English-language Chinese reports call them astronauts.

 

Mission Launch Date Crew Comments
Shenzhou-5 Oct. 15, 2003 Yang Liwei First Chinese human spaceflight mission;
21 hours, 23 min
Shenzhou-6 Oct. 12, 2005 Fei Junlong
Nie Haisheng		 First Chinese 2-person crew;
5 day mission
Shenzhou-7 Sept. 25, 2008 Zhai Zhigang
Liu Boming
Jing Haipeng

First Chinese 3-person crew;
First Chinese spacewalk (by Zhai for 22 min, Liu
also did stand-up EVA in airlock for about 2 min)
3 day mission
Small (40 kg) subsatellite ejected
Shenzhou-9

July 16, 2012
 

Jing Haipeng
Liu Wang
Liu Yang

Automatic and manual docking with Tiangong-1
First Chinese space station crew
           
Liu Yang first Chinese woman astronaut
13 day mission
 Shenzhou-10  June 11, 2013

Nie Haisheng
Zhang Xiaoguang
Wang Yaping

Planned 15 day mission includes docking with Tiangong-1;
conduct manual docking test, various experiments.
Wang second Chinese women in
space. China calls her
their first teacher in space because
she will give a physics
lecture from space, but she is a transport aircraft pilot, not a
teacher, by training.

The Tiangong-1 space station is a small (8.6 metric ton) module.   As first space stations go, it is rather modest — just less than half the mass of the world’s first space station, Salyut 1. Launched in 1971, it had a mass of about 18.6 metric tons. The first U.S. space station, Skylab, launched in 1973, had a mass of about 77 metric tons. Today’s International Space Station (ISS), a partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada, has a mass of about 400 metric tons and has been permanently occupied by 2-6 person crews rotating on 4-6 month missions since the year 2000.

Last Updated: Jun 12, 2013 9:28 am ET
China Announces Crew for Tomorrow's Shenzhou 10 Launch

China Announces Crew for Tomorrow's Shenzhou 10 Launch

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 10, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 10, 2013 10:08 am ET

China will launch a three-person crew tomorrow, June 11, to its Tiangong-1 space station on the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft.  The crew includes two men and one woman.

Launch is scheduled for 5:38 pm Beijing time (5:38 am Eastern Daylight Time; 09:38 GMT) from the Jiuquan launch center using a Long March-2F rocket.

The crew are Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang, and Wang Yaping.   Wang will become China’s second woman astronaut.

Shenzhou-10 crew.  Photo credit:  Xinhua

It is a 15-day mission that includes two docking tests with Tiangong-1, one manual and one automatic.   Medical and technical tests and a lecture by the crew while they are inside Tiangong-1 to a group of students are planned.

Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011 and the unoccupied Shenzhou-8 spacecraft performed docking tests with it that fall.   In 2012, the small space station (8.5 metric tons) hosted the three-person Shenzhou-9 crew, which included China’s first woman in space, Liu Yang.  They remained in space for just under two weeks.

 

Last Updated: Jun 10, 2013 10:08 am ET
Transportation and Commerce Departments One Step Closer to New Leadership

Transportation and Commerce Departments One Step Closer to New Leadership

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 10, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 10, 2013 7:47 pm ET

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today approved the nominations of Anthony Foxx to be Secretary of Transportation and Penny Pritzker to be Secretary of Commerce.

The votes were unanimous.  Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said both were “excellent nominees” with “strong bipartisan support” and urged his colleagues to quickly schedule a floor vote to confirm them.

Both departments play important roles in space policy.   The Department of Transportation is home to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST).   AST facilitates and regulates the commercial space launch business.

The Department of Commerce is the parent of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which operates the nation’s weather satellites and licenses commercial remote sensing satellites, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees federal government use of spectrum.   It also is in charge of exports of dual use items and is working with the State Department in the effort to transition commercial satellites from the State Department’s Munitions List and its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to the Commerce Department’s less strict Commerce Control List.   The Secretary of Commerce position has been vacant for a year.  Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank was serving as acting Secretary, but she recently left the Administration to become Chancellor of the Unviersity of Wisconsin-Madison.

Last Updated: Jun 10, 2013 7:47 pm ET
Space Policy Events for the Week of June 10-14, 2013

Space Policy Events for the Week of June 10-14, 2013

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 9, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 9, 2013 10:51 pm ET

The following space policy events may be of interest in the week ahead.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

Monday, June 10

Tuesday, June 11

Tuesday-Friday, June 11-14

Wednesday, June 12

Wednesday-Friday, June 12-14

Thursday, June 13

Friday, June 14

 

Last Updated: Jun 09, 2013 10:51 pm ET
Tereshkova Ready for One-Way Trip to Mars

Tereshkova Ready for One-Way Trip to Mars

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 7, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 7, 2013 6:39 pm ET

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space 50 years ago this month, wants to be on the first crew to go to Mars even though she assumes there will be no coming back.

Tereshkova, now 76, made history on June 16, 1963 when she was launched into space by the Soviet Union aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft.   During her three-day mission, she made several close passes with another Soviet spacecraft, Vostok 5, carrying cosmonaut Valeriy Bykovski who had launched two days earlier.  The mission was somewhat of a repeat of co-orbital operations accomplished the previous August with Vostok 3 and 4.  This mission stood out because of Tereshkova claiming another space “first” for the Soviet Union in the heated Space Race era (and Bykovskiy won the record for longest spaceflight at the time, almost 5 days).   

The 50th anniversary of Tereshkova’s flight is about to be celebrated by the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in Vienna, Austria.  It is sponsoring an event on June 13 featuring Tereshkova and the first women in space from Canada (Roberta Bondar), Japan (Chiaki Mukai) and China (Liu Yang), as well as U.S. astronaut Janet Kavandi.  America’s first woman in space, Sally Ride, died last year.

In an interview reported by Russia’s RIA Novosti news service today, Tereshkova said that “of course, it’s a dream to go to Mars and find out whether there was life there or not” and if there was, what happened to it.  RIA Novosti did not quote her using these words, but the reporter said that Tereshkova thought the first trip to Mars would be a “suicide trip,” but she is ready to volunteer nonetheless.  She also objected to the idea of space tourism, arguing that spaceflight should be reserved for specialists because “there is still a lot that hasn’t been studied.”

Being “first” was an important criterion for both the U.S. and Soviet space programs at that time.   That Tereshkova’s flight was just one more such exercise for the Soviets rather than a commitment to including women on space crews is evidenced by the fact that in the subsequent 50 years, only two other Soviet women have made spaceflights:  Svetlana Savitskaya (1982 and 1984, in both cases to the Salyut 7 space station) and Yelena Kondakova (1994 to the Mir space station, and 1997 on STS-84).   Savitskaya’s 1982 flight took place just before the United States launched its first woman  into space (Ride, in 1983).  On her second flight, Savitskaya became the first woman to make a spacewalk — just months before Kathy Sullivan was to become the first American woman to accomplish that feat (also in 1984).

Though it took the United States 20 years longer to launch its first woman into space, Ride’s launch heralded an era where women on spaceflights has become so routine that few take notice.   U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg just launched to the International Space Station last week, for example.   Two American women astronauts have commanded the ISS (Peggy Whitson and Suni Williams) and others commanded space shuttle missions.   Other countries also have multiple women astronauts and rumors are that a second Chinese woman will be among the crew for China’s space station launch coming up in the next week or so.  

Meanwhile, Russia has not announced when another Russian woman will make a spaceflight, but no one can deny that it was the first to do so.

Last Updated: Jun 07, 2013 6:39 pm ET
HASC Subcommittee Chairman Demands Answers on Alleged Chinese ASAT Test

HASC Subcommittee Chairman Demands Answers on Alleged Chinese ASAT Test

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 5, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 5, 2013 1:03 pm ET

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday demanding information on a Chinese rocket launch last month that some press reports alleged was a test of an antisatellite (ASAT) system.

Forbes chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.   In the June 3 letter, Forbes says that the Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed the May 13, 2013 launch of a Chinese missile “nearly to geosynchronous orbit” and quotes Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as characterizing it as the world’s highest suborbital launch since 1976 and the highest altitude reached by a Chinese suborbital rocket. 

McDowell is author of the highly respected Jonathan’s Space Report (JSR).  His May 21, 2013 JSR quotes a Department of Defense (DOD) source as using the “nearly to geosynchronous orbit” phrase and does not present his own estimate of the rocket’s highest point (apogee).   In fact, he cautions that if DOD “only tracked it early in flight with resulting large apogee uncertainties, they may be prone to getting the answer they expected.”   He does note that it would be the highest suborbital launch since Gravity Probe A in 1976 and possibly since Blue Scout Jr O-2 in 1961, but does not compare it to other Chinese suborbital launches.  He concludes that “It is indeed possible that this launch was to qualify a new launch vehicle variant intended to carry a high altitude ASAT payload — but there’s no evidence that such a payload was carried on this particular flight.”  Absent more information from DOD or China “It is hard to draw firm conclusions,” he says. 

Getting more information is exactly what Forbes wants to do.  His letter asks Hagel to brief him with the answers to six questions:

  • Was the launch part of China’s antisatellite program?
  • If so, did the launch test a new or existing antisatellite capability?
  • If this is a new antisatellite capability, what type of attack mechanism  is it designed to employ ….?
  • If this is a new antisatellite capability, in what orbital regime is it designed to target satellites?
  • If the launch was part of China’s antisatellite program, why did China attempt to disguise it as a scientific experiment?  Has the Department of Defense raised this issue with the Chinese government?
  • What are China’s current and projected abilities to target U.S. satellites ….  How does the Department of Defense plan to mitigate China’s counterspace capabilities?

The letter did not set a deadline for the requested briefing.

Clarification:  An earlier version of this article cited McDowell as saying that if the Chinese rocket “did reach that altitude, it would be the highest suborbital launch since Gravity Probe A in 1976.”   McDowell’s exact words in his May 21 JSR are: “This is the highest altitude suborbital flight since Gravity Probe A in 1976, and possibly since Blue Scout Jr O-2 in 1961.”   We have modifed the text in this article  accordingly because, in a June 5 email to this editor, McDowell clarifies that if the rocket reached 10,000 kilometers, the highest altitude mentioned by the Chinese (where they said they conducted a barium release for scientific purposes), it might be the highest since Gravity Probe A in 1976.  However, if it reached “nearly to geosynchronous Earth orbit” as DOD claims, it might be the highest since 1961 although the phrase “nearly GEO” is difficult to interpret.  Geosynchronous orbit itself is at 35,780 kilometers, but “nearly” is a subjective term.

Last Updated: Jun 05, 2013 1:03 pm ET
China Getting Ready for New Space Station Mission

China Getting Ready for New Space Station Mission

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 3, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 3, 2013 5:36 pm ET

China confirmed today that the next launch of three taikonauts to its Tiangong-1 space station aboard the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will take place very soon.

China’s news agency Xinhua did not specify the date for the launch, saying only that it would be “in the middle of June.”  Bob Christy (@zarya.info) tweets that the launch may take place between June 11 and June 20.

Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace), China’s first space station, was launched in September 2011.  After a test docking with an unoccupied spacecraft (Shenzhou-8), the first 3-person crew docked last year and spent just under two weeks aboard the small 8.5 metric ton module.  That crew included China’s first woman in space, Liu Yang.  (She and the first women in space from other counties will participate in a United Nations-sponsored event in Vienna, Austria on June 13 to commemorate the first flight of a woman to space 50 years ago.)

As first space stations go, Tiangong-1 is rather modest — just less than half the mass of the world’s first space station, the Soviet Union’s Salyut 1.  Launched in 1971, it had a mass of about 18.6 metric tons.  The first U.S. space station, Skylab, launched in 1973, had a mass of about 77 metric tons. 

Today’s International Space Station (ISS), a partnership among the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, has a mass of about 400 metric tons and has been permanently occupied by 2-6 person crews rotating on 4-6 month missions for the past 13 years.

Shenzhou-10 and its Long March- 2F rocket were transported to the launch site on Monday morning (Beijing time, which is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time).    The names of the three crew members have not been announced.

Last Updated: Jun 03, 2013 5:36 pm ET
HASC Wants Answers on DOD Use of Foreign Commercial Satellites

HASC Wants Answers on DOD Use of Foreign Commercial Satellites

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 3, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 3, 2013 4:36 pm ET

House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) has released the text of the draft FY2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) his committee will markup on Wednesday.  Among the provisions in the 426-page bill, H.R.1960, is one that requires the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) to answer questions about why DOD leases communications satellite services from certain countries subject to U.S. sanctions.

At a hearing before HASC’s Strategic Forces subcommittee in April, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Doug Loverro revealed that DOD is leasing services on a Chinese-owned communications satellite.   The revelation came as a surprise considering that many House Republicans are opposed to civilian space cooperation with China and the law prohibits NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from spending any money in connection with China unless certain conditions are met.  No similar restrictions have been placed on DOD, however.  At least not yet.

Noting that 40 percent of DOD’s satellite communications are provided through commercial satellites, the draft bill requires the SecDef to explain why DOD uses satellite services from “certain foreign providers.”  The bill identifies those as countries subject to sanctions and laws such as section 1261(c)(2) of the FY2013 NDAA and the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA).   “While the committee has received some information from the Department … the responses to straight-forward questions have changed over time.  The committee is disappointed by the Department’s lack of clarity … and … concerned that the Department has not established effective management controls over commercial satellite leases, and in particular, ones regarding certain foreign providers.”

Among the topics the SecDef is required to address is why “other commercial or U.S. Government providers, including the Operationally Responsive Space office, were not available or tasked to fill the requirement.”  The fate of the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office itself was not addressed in either the draft bill or a summary of its main provisions released by HASC today.   Congress rejected DOD’s proposal to terminate ORS last year, but the Air Force has again proposed terminating it this year.  In the material released today, it does not appear that HASC is changing any of the funding requests for DOD space activities.

On other commercial space matters, the summary of main provisions says that the bill requires DOD to “develop a strategy to lower the cost, through multi-year procurement, of commercial satellite services.”  Separately it “reforms DoD’s business process with commercial satellite companies ensuring that strategic competitors do not gain inadvertent access to vital systems or information.”  Details on what the committee has in mind on those two fronts hopefully will be in the report to accompany the bill, which was not released today. 

Overall, the bill would provide $552.1 billion for national defense (of which $526.6 billion is for the core DOD budget) plus $85.8 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (e.g. the war in Afghanistan).  The $85.8 billion is $5.1 billion more than the President’s request.  McKeon said the funding figures are consistent with the House-passed budget resolution, but Jeremy Herb, writing for the The Hill newspaper, reports that the $526.6 billion for the core DOD budget is $52 billion above the spending cap in the 2011 Budget Control Act that created sequestration.  “If the budget stays over the caps and sequester is not reversed, the Pentagon would face another across-the-board cut,” Herb says.

Full committee markup begins at 10:00 am ET on Wednesday and will be webcast on the committee’s website.

Last Updated: Jun 03, 2013 4:36 pm ET
Sea Launch Completes Investigation of Intelsat 27 Launch Failure

Sea Launch Completes Investigation of Intelsat 27 Launch Failure

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 3, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 3, 2013 10:52 pm ET

Sea Launch AG announced today completion of its investigation into the cause of the January 31, 2013 (Pacific Time, February 1 Eastern Time) failure of the launch of the Intelsat-27 satellite.  Corrective actions are underway and do not require hardware changes, the company said.

The launch failure was another blow not only to Sea Launch itself, but to the reputation of the Russian and Ukrainian companies that produce the Zenit rocket’s three stages.   The first two stages of Sea Launch’s version of Zenit, the Zenit-3SL, are Ukrainian, with a Russian third stage on top.  The rocket is launched from a Norwegian-built mobile ocean-going platform based in Long Beach, CA and towed to a position close to the equator for launch.  Boeing originally was a 40 percent partner in Sea Launch, but the company declared bankruptcy in 2009 after a spectacular launch failure in 2007. The company reorganized and now is 95 percent owned by Russia’s Energia RSC.  Boeing retains a very small share of the company.

The Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) for the January 31 failure issued its final report on May 31, concurring with earlier findings that the failure was isolated to the rocket’s first stage hydraulic power supply unit and corrective actions involve additional inspections and tests, Sea Launch said today.   Company executives will now meet with customer and insurance representatives to convince them the rocket is ready to return to flight.

Last Updated: Jun 03, 2013 10:52 pm ET
Four Books for Your Summer Reading List

Four Books for Your Summer Reading List

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 1, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 1, 2013 5:48 pm ET

It’s been a while since we updated our “Top Picks” reading list.  With summer vacations coming up, here are four that we’re adding today.

These are listed chronologically based on when we got them, except for the last — we haven’t seen that one yet, but have heard good things.  Apart from that, there is no particular order.  As you’ll see, they span a wide spectrum of interests.

  • Roger Launius (ed).  Exploring the Solar System:  The History and Science of Planetary Exploration.  Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.  381 pp.
  • Dominic Phelan (ed).  Cold War Space Sleuths:  The Untold Secrets of the Soviet Space Program.  Springer, 2013.   300 pp.
  • Buzz Aldrin and Leonard David.   Mission to Mars:  My Vision for Space Exploration.  National Geographic, 2013.  258 pp.
  • Matthew Kleiman.   The Little Book of Space Law.   American Bar Association, 2013.  190 pp.

We also just heard that Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, President Emeritus of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL), just published his memoirs — Same Sky, Different Nights.   We’ll add it to the list when we get more details.  Originally from Sri Lanka, he spent a good portion of his career at the United Nations rising up the ladder of the organization (currently the Office of Outer Space Affairs in Vienna, Austria) that administers the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOUS).  Should make for some very interesting tales.

Enjoy!

 

Last Updated: Jun 01, 2013 5:48 pm ET

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