Chao News client reporter Tu Chenxin.
This Lantern Festival, China's preliminary plan for a manned lunar landing was announced, making the Chinese's dream of "going to the moon for nine days" clear and tangible.
Xinhua News Agency said on February 24** that the name of the new vehicle for China's manned lunar exploration mission was announced, the new generation of manned spacecraft was named "Mengzhou", and the lunar lander was named "Lanyue", which will complete China's manned lunar exploration mission together with the Long March 10 carrier rocket.
According to CCTV News, the main process of the future manned lunar landing mission is to use two Long March 10 to successively send the lunar lander and the Mengzhou spacecraft to the Earth-Moon transfer orbit.
The two vehicles rendezvous and dock in orbit around the moon, and the astronauts enter the lander, and the lander sends the astronauts to the lunar surface, where the astronauts carry out scientific investigation and sample collection as planned.
After completing the scheduled task, the astronauts ascended to the orbit around the moon on the lunar lander, the two vehicles rendezvoused and docked again, and the astronauts transferred the lunar samples to the spacecraft, and the spacecraft returned to the earth from the moon-to-earth transfer orbit.
Seeing the official announcement of the China Manned Space Office, the public couldn't help but jump out of a string of question marks in their minds while being excited. Chao News interviewed Yang Yuguang, vice chairman of the International Astronautical Federation's Space Transportation Committee, on the following issues that everyone is most concerned about.
Source: CCTV News.
What are the mainstream plans for international manned lunar landing?
One of the highlights of China's preliminary plan for a manned lunar landing is the rendezvous and docking of two launches around the moon. Yang Yuguang told the Chao News reporter that in addition to the rendezvous and docking plan around the moon, there are also direct lunar landing and earth orbit rendezvous and docking, a total of three main schemes or their combinations.
The direct lunar landing scheme requires the spacecraft to land on the surface of the moon, and after completing the mission, the entire spacecraft will rise directly from the lunar surface and return to the earth, which requires the highest rocket capacity, because if all the functions are concentrated in one spacecraft, the spacecraft will be very huge. Yang Yuguang believes that although this is theoretically feasible, it is impossible for any kind of human rocket to meet this requirement, and it is completely undesirable to invest a lot of money to build such a rocket.
Yang Yuguang gave an example: The Luna trimeter sampling vehicle launched by the Soviet Union used the direct lunar landing method, and its "Proton" carrier rocket had a low-earth orbit capacity of about 20 tons, which is close to that of the Long March 5, but it could only bring back a sample of more than 100 grams at a time, which shows the great waste of energy in this program.
The earth-orbit rendezvous and docking scheme needs to use multiple rockets to launch a part of the spacecraft separately, and after each part is assembled in the earth's orbit, the lunar and lunar landing are similar to the direct lunar landing method, so that there is no need to develop a heavy-duty rocket, and its efficiency is between the two schemes of direct lunar landing and lunar orbit rendezvous and docking.
Source: CCTV News.
The most energy-saving is the rendezvous and docking method around the moon used by the Apollo program. Yang Yuguang introduced that its lunar landing combination includes a spacecraft and a lunar module, after the two are separated in lunar orbit, the lunar module lands on the lunar surface, and after completing the task, it rises and docks with the spacecraft, and the spacecraft changes orbit and returns to Earth.
The biggest advantage of the lunar orbit docking method is that the lunar module is only responsible for the round-trip between the lunar orbit and the lunar surface, and the spacecraft is responsible for the round-trip between the lunar orbit and the earth. As a result, all countries have chosen this option for their lunar programs, with no exceptions.
According to a report by China Aerospace News, China's orbit docking plan around the moon not only draws on the "Apollo" lunar orbit docking design, but also has great innovations, which coincides with part of the US "Artemis Program" lunar landing program. China's initial plan for manned lunar landing is similar to the "Artemis-3" mission, but it does not have to specialize in the development of heavy rockets, so as to save costs, make efficient use of technological progress, eliminate risks, and be more robust and reliable.
Models of China's Long March 10 rocket, Lanyue lander and Mengzhou spacecraft. Source: China Manned Space Office.
Why do you need to launch two Long March 10 rockets to the moon at one time?
So far, the "Apollo program" is the only successful manned lunar landing program, with a manned spacecraft and a lunar module launched by 1 Saturn V heavy rocket. At the same time, the USSR likewise chose the scheme of a one-time launch by a heavy rocket (N1).
China's planned manned mission to the moon is to launch the Long March 10 in two phases. Yang Yuguang said that this fully excavates China's existing technical foundation, and integrates innovation, reflecting the trade-off between striving for mission success and reducing potential risks.
At the beginning of the demonstration of the manned lunar landing by the United States and the Soviet Union, the technology of spacecraft rendezvous and docking was not yet mature, and if a lunar lander and a manned spacecraft were launched separately to carry out in-orbit docking, the technical risk would be very high. The easiest and most practical way to increase the success rate is to develop a heavy rocket with an astonishing capacity to send a lunar module and a manned spacecraft to the moon in one go.
Today, however, the situation is very different. On the one hand, the development of a new generation of heavy rockets is difficult, time-consuming, and extremely costly. The American SLS rocket, which cost tens of billions of dollars, is still using the transitional version of the upper stage. On the other hand, the spacecraft rendezvous and docking technology is very mature and reliable.
After comprehensive consideration, it is feasible and reasonable to use rockets with sufficient transportation capacity and lower development costs to launch manned spacecraft and lunar modules respectively, and rendezvous and docking in orbit.
The Long March 10 is China's rocket that meets this requirement at this stage. "The Chang 10 uses a large number of mature technologies of the Long 5, such as the YF100 series liquid oxygen kerosene engine, which is widely used in the new generation of Long March rockets. Compared with the model on the long five, not only the thrust of a single unit has increased from 120 tons to 130 tons, but more importantly, the front swing of the pump has been changed to the rear swing of the pump, and the space occupied by each engine has been reduced a lot, and 7 units can be installed in the 5-meter diameter arrow body, while the original YF100 is 3 in the long fiveOnly 2 boosters can be installed in a 35-meter diameter booster. Yang Yuguang said that the take-off thrust of the Long March 10 reached more than 2,600 tons, which fully met the capacity needs of the twin moon landings.
According to CCTV, relying on thrust improvement and structural innovation, the take-off mass of the Long March 10 is about 2,187 tons, and it is expected that the Earth-Moon transfer orbit capacity will be 82 tons increased to about 27 tons, this indicator is comparable to the initial type of the American SLS heavy rocket.
Considering that the development cost of the Long March 10 is much lower than that of several heavy-lift rockets in the United States, China's manned lunar landing program will undoubtedly have better cost performance and sustainability.
Source: CCTV News.
Source: CCTV News.
Why is it that more than half a century has passed, and it is more difficult for humans to return to the moon?
The Apollo program was a technological marvel achieved 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War, driven by politics and investment at any cost. Yang Yuguang revealed that even today it is very difficult for the United States to build the Tuxing-5, although the drawings remained, but the experienced engineers and technicians are basically gone.
In fact, the two current heavy rockets of the United States, whether SLS or Starship, are inferior to Saturn V in terms of carrying out lunar missions without propellant replenishment.
Neither China's moon landing program nor the U.S. Artemis program can afford to spend as much money as it did in the Apollo era, and the space spending for manned lunar landings is much less, and it must be invested economically. This may explain why it is so difficult for the United States to return to the moon when it was successful.
Compared with the Artemis program, although the scheme chosen by China is two launches, it does not require the development of heavy rockets, which is more economical and faster to achieve.
The current lunar landing programs of China and the United States also have one thing in common, that is, the construction of future lunar bases is considered as a system. Yang Yuguang said that the future manned lunar mission is no longer a punch-card tour, and the manned lunar mission will more clearly reflect the "equal emphasis on exploring the moon and developing the moon".
*: Chao News Client).
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