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Some of the features I know from the Chinese space station - Solar panels smaller in area than ISS but produces similar amount of power, indicating much more e
by russli1993 4y ago
Some of the features I know from the Chinese space station
- Solar panels smaller in area than ISS but produces similar amount of power, indicating much more efficient solar panels
- Ion thrusters to keep space in orbit
- Automated docking of cargo and crew capsule. Semi-automated docking of large station components like the 23ton labs
- A robotic arm similar to ISS that walk along the joint points on the station. It has expandable attachment system, allowing not only astronauts to attach, but also a smaller more precises robotic arm to attach that can manipulate external experiments.
- It has a crew airlock and a cargo airlock, the cargo one is larger than the one on ISS.
- It can also release small satellites through the cargo airlock.
- Dozens of external experiment attachment points, some (maybe all) has power and control
- What looks like pretty good communication links with the ground. Experiments can be controlled and monitored from the ground, saving astronaut time.
- What looks like some advanced experiment equipment, including three very accurate atomic clocks, near absolute zero cooling systems etc. But I am not well versed in physics to speak on these.
- It will operate a space telescope; telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades, and equipment uploaded by regular space station cargo ship.
I think it is a well-designed system, surprisingly capable in terms of research capabilities. As China's space industry is completely sanctioned by US and Wassenaar Arrangement, all technology here are from Chinese industries and local supply chains: materials, precision manufacturing, communication equipment, sensors used for guidance/automated docking, robotic arm, ion thrusters, solar panels, networking and control system within the station, even to the logistic system of building, launching and running the station. Then there is the whole rocket system themselves, 100% success rate thus far with CZ-5/B, CZ-7 cargo ship, and Shenzhou launch vehicle. And then the global positioning and communications satellite network. And then there is the whole research equipment part. There are millions+ ppl involved in all of the projects here.
- Jayab 4y agoSo then maybe a little late to sanction their tech to keep them from being peer competitors.
- russli1993 4y agoUS did sanction all of China's space industry, defense dual use industries since the 1990s, and never let go ever since. That is pretty early. And this is what happens 30 years since the sanctions. But I have no idea what will happen in the future, plus the nature of industry and technology is also different.
- ethbr0 4y agoAs much as it's a waste of duplicate effort, it's likely good for humanity and geopolitics to have multiple nation-states each trying their own approaches. Avoids path lock-in by exploring alternate solutions lines, and ensures that if one country decides to slow down (because politics) then the world doesn't lose its only leading-edge space program. Healthy competition for the betterment of all!
- nine_k 4y agoOne says "duplicate effort", someone else says "independent implementation". Some cooperation would be great, of course. Like the US / USSR space cooperation in 1970s, despite bitter ideological and military rivalry.
- hunglee2 4y agoagree with this - duplication of effort, but not duplication of approach or method, which means actually it becomes a giant A/B test, which hopefully means faster progress for humanity as a whole.
- thebooktocome 4y agoSanctions didn’t stop China from carrying out one of the most successful research and technology exfiltration campaigns in history.
- noizejoy 4y agoKind of ironic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
- Grimburger 4y ago> It will operate a space telescope; telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades, and equipment uploaded by regular space station cargo ship. The co-orbit strategy is excellent, a short trip for repairs and easy to fit into existing schedules if something goes wrong. It's no James Webb but was never intended to be, about the same size as Hubble but with 400x the field of view. Guessing it will be cranking out the discoveries.
- orbital-decay 4y agoIt's a great way to have much higher quality microgravity than is possible with a habitable station, in a serviceable module. Low vibration is important for telescopes and some experiments (crystallography in particular). A co-orbiting module was also in the plans for ISS, but like many other planned features it was never implemented.
- m4rtink 4y agoIIRC there were such plans for Space Statio Alpha, ISS or even the European space station plans - it just never got funded in the end.
- diskzero 4y agoThanks for the super informative reply. I am hoping as there is more activity on the space station, that more information will be coming out. It would be nice to be able to see something similar to the ESA, NASA and even Roscosmos launch feeds and Q&A sessions.
- throwaway4good 4y agoPlenty coverage exists in Chinese from children shows to academia, and you can also show up on Hainan island to watch a launch. However it doesn’t get much coverage in western media beyond a Cold War / environmental risk angle.
- throwaway4good 4y agoThis is a clip together from the live tv coverage of the latest launch: https://youtu.be/81Ova5fo0vM https://youtu.be/81Ova5fo0vM Reminds me of the coverage of the US launches I watched as a kid.
- aasasd 4y agoThere's this clip showing some experiments for the benefit of schoolchildren: https://reddit.com/comments/y2kjmi https://reddit.com/comments/y2kjmi I'm guessing this is an ongoing thing, and since the clip popped up on Reddit it seems at least ‘social media’ pick up on such output.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tunesmith 4y ago"sanction" is one of the dumbest words on earth. "to give official approval" vs "impose a penalty".
- cdelsolar 4y agoYep and I have no idea what the OP meant by this.
- resoluteteeth 4y agosubject to sanctions or export controls, I think, so they can't use exported US products and have to develop their own
- nimbius 4y agoSo for those wondering why no US collaboration, you can blame republican octogenarian Frank Wolf for introducting the Wolf amendment prohibiting any and all NASA collaboration with china that isnt expressly sanctioned by the rest of the geriatrics in congress. he even managed to fuck up the 2013 Kepler Science Conference which resulted in a mass boycott after two chinese scientists were banned. We had every opportunity to collaborate with chinese scientists aboard the ISS before this crap. The man is a traitor to science.
- chrononaut 4y ago> that isnt expressly sanctioned by the rest of the geriatrics in congress Interestingly, you inadvertently (?) demonstrated OPs comment by using the opposing definition from GP.
- skrebbel 4y agoI bet it was on purpose and I love it.
- jonnybgood 4y agoIt's a little more nuanced than being a traitor to science given China's strategy in regards to acquisition of scientific research and technology. China doesn't collaborate, it just takes until it reaches scientific and technological parity. Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China.
- rtkwe 4y ago> Solar panels smaller in area than ISS but produces similar amount of power, indicating much more efficient solar panels I should hope so after over a decade. AFAIK they haven't changed the solar panels since the last one was installed in 2009 and the design was probably fixed well before the first one was installed. > A robotic arm similar to ISS that walk along the joint points on the station. It has expandable attachment system, allowing not only astronauts to attach, but also a smaller more precises robotic arm to attach that can manipulate external experiments Canada Arm also walks along the ISS too using alternating ends that astronauts can be attached to.
- wumpus 4y agoI think you missed the recent delivery of new roll-up solar panels to the ISS. Also I don't think the CanadaArm can roam to the Russian segment, but there's a new European arm that does.
- rtkwe 4y agoI've tried and can't find a list of the positions of the grapple fixtures CanadaArm uses on the ISS but I think it could reach pretty far over the Russian segments from the other half of the station. I did forget about those but they did only cover one small part of the array iirc. Most of the original array is still active.
- throwaway4good 4y agoJust imagine all that effort and resources being spent on the International Space Station instead. I wonder were we, the combined humanity, could have been in terms of space exploration, if we just could have been bothered to work together.
- pishpash 4y agoThen you imagine, if two groups in a company bothered to work together.
- kelnos 4y agoI still think there's room for competition, though. Two groups can want to cooperate but have reasonable and valid differences of opinions on how do do things that are large enough to warrant going their separate ways. And perhaps some of the things China's station can do are just not feasible to tack onto the ISS, at least not without pushing timelines back past what China might consider acceptable. Not saying that's what's happened here; certainly China's independent efforts here are largely fueled by isolationism and protectionism. And NASA is prohibited by US law from collaborating with China, unless they get prior approval from Congress and the FBI for each collaboration[0]. But I think, as a general sentiment, sometimes competition can be healthy and push the state of the art forward faster. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
- smileysteve 4y agoTiming wise, ISS is at end of life, and replacement plans are a decade off. So, in a way this produces needed overlap (from a humanity standpoint).
- simonh 4y agoSanctions on parts for particular purposes are trivial to bypass, you just buy the parts abroad or for a different purpose. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to go as indigenous as possible to reduce dependency on foreign components. They've definitely made impressive advances in the last decade or so.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago> telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades, "Quick, wind it back in, I need to change the SD card!"