This year’s 40 space launches will set record
THE most eye-catching of the space missions by China this year will be the third flight of its largest carrier rocket, Long March 5, whose last mission failed in July, and the Change 4 lunar landing mission that will put a robotic probe on the far side of the moon.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the primary contractor for the nation’s space programmes, said in a statement published last week, that its Long March-series rockets will fulfill 35 missions in 2018. It said 2018 will be the busiest and most important year for the space industry giant since its founding in 1999 because it is determined to use the year’s missions to reverse the unfavorable situations caused by recent failures.
Another State-owned space company, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, will conduct at least five space launches using its solid-propellant rockets this year: four by Kuaizhou 1A rockets and one by Kuaizhou 11, the new model’s maiden flight.
The two companies did not release detailed timetables for the missions. Their combined launch schedule will set a record as the busiest year for China’s space industry. Currently, 2016 holds the record for the most space missions, with 22 launches.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corps statement is the first official confirmation that Long March 5 will make at least one flight this year and that Chinese space engineers have resolved the rocket’s problems.
As China’s mightiest and most technologically advanced launch vehicle, the 57m-tall Long March 5 was first flown in November 2016 at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in the southern island province of Hainan. It was designed to place the nation’s future manned space station in orbit and to ferry large probes to the moon, Mars and asteroids.
However, the gigantic rocket’s second mission, to lift the Shijian 18 experimental satellite, the nation’s largest and heaviest satellite, was thwarted in July as a result of the rocket’s mechanical malfunctions during the midcourse of the flight. The rocket and satellite fell into an area of deep ocean.
As a result, a plan to use Long March 5’s third mission in last year’s fourth quarter for the Change 5 mission to take samples on the moon and bring them to Earth, had to be rescheduled to give engineers more time to examine the rocket’s design and quality and to use additional launches to verify its reliability before entrusting it with Change 5.
The Change 4 mission has been scheduled for the end of this year, and will use a Long March 3B rocket to put a probe into orbit. The probe will then conduct mankind’s first soft landing, using small engines to slow the descent, on the far side of the moon.
The Long March family’s jobs in 2018 will also include the launches of more than 10 third-generation Beidou navigation and positioning satellites.
In 2017, China performed 18 space missions – 16 by Long March rockets, one by Kuaizhou 1A and one by Kaituo 2, also a solid-propellant rocket designed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. Among them was one failure, the Long March 5’s second mission, and one partial failure in which the rocket lost thrust before placing the satellite into the preset orbit. In that case, the satellite moved into the right orbit using its own fuel.
The United States remained the top player in terms of launches with 29 that year. Russia carried out 20 flights, including one failure.
In 2016, China had 22 missions, including two failures. The US had 22 plus one prelaunch rocket explosion, while Russia had 17, including one failure. – China Daily/Asia News Network