China To Snap 4 Space Ships Into a Station 340
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.
independent Orbital/Hab module (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Taikonaut, cosmonaut and astronaut (Score:3, Interesting)
Cosmonauts = evil russkies.
Now that China is the other bogeyman country, we have to give their astronauts a different name to distinguish them. Hence taikonaut.
Try to keep up with the propaganda will you?
Now taking bets ... (Score:4, Interesting)
First country to establish a permanent lunar base?
First country to establish a permanent martian colony?
I know where my money is riding.
Re:They want to play in their own sand box (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now taking bets ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:15 million dollar space suit ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Sky lab a used booster rocket (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Taikonaut, cosmonaut and astronaut (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Taikonaut, cosmonaut and astronaut (Score:3, Interesting)
"Astronaut" is a widely-accepted English word, derived from Greek, that means someone who travels outside Earth's atmosphere. "Cosmonaut" is an English transliteration of a widely-accepted Russian word, also derived from Greek, that means the same thing.
Besides, the Greeks didn't really distinguish between stars and planets, so there's nothing wrong with using the word "astronaut" anyway.
Re:Taikonaut, cosmonaut and astronaut (Score:3, Interesting)
You're absolutely right. In fact, I'm about to petition Coca-Cola to stop this abhorrent practice of translating their name into all those other languages. If "Coca-Cola" is good enough for English-speakers, it's good enough for anyone!
Separate re-entry capsule (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy to do stuff like this in China... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:15 million dollar space suit ... (Score:3, Interesting)
the US may wake up one morning and find that it has pissed away its advantage
Might want to check out the news the last couple weeks.