Chinanews.com, Beijing, December 22. Title: New upgrades, new technologies, and new leapfrogs: the first flight of "Chang 8" fills the gap in China's rocket capabilities
Author Guo Chaokai
On December 22, the Long March 8 carrier rocket successfully flew for the first time at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China in the manner of "one arrow and five stars".
This is a new type of rocket that takes into account both low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous transfer orbit launch capabilities. It increases the carrying capacity of China’s sun-synchronous orbit from 3 tons to 4.5 tons, effectively filling the capability gap of China’s new generation of carrier rockets and further improving Chinese launch vehicle type spectrum.
More importantly, in the near future, it will turn the related technologies of future rockets in the people's imagination into reality one by one.
At 12:37 on December 22, Beijing time, the Long March 8 carrier rocket was successfully launched at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China, sending five satellites into the predetermined orbit with "one arrow and five stars".
Photo by Wanke
New enhancement of China's launch vehicle capabilities
In the process of demonstrating the new generation of launch vehicles, China put forward the development concept of a new generation of large, medium and small launch vehicles based on liquid oxygen kerosene and liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engines, and through more than 20 years of pre-research and engineering development, Successfully developed a new generation of carrier rockets such as Long March 5 and Long March 7, and formed common modules with diameters of 2.25 meters, 3.35 meters and 5 meters, laying the foundation for the development of "modularization, serialization, and combination" of China's new generation of carrier rockets .
The Long March 8 launch vehicle development team used hundreds of combinations of existing rocket modules in China to continuously innovate and develop ideas and plans, and finally came up with the current configuration.
This type of launch vehicle adopts a core stage bundled with two boosters configuration, and the carrying capacity of 700 kilometers sun synchronous orbit is not less than 4.5 tons.
Song Zhengyu, chief designer of the Long March 8 launch vehicle of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, said: “The Long March 8 launch vehicle is a new combination of the Long March 7 launch vehicle and the third stage of the Long March 3A series rocket. Configuration rocket."
Xiao Yun, commander-in-chief of the Long March 8 launch vehicle of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, said that China’s main launch vehicle with low-to-medium orbit launch capability can send a 3-ton payload to the sun-synchronous orbit.
The Long March 8 carrier rocket has increased this capacity to 4.5 tons. This is an increase in the capacity of the Long March series of carrier rockets. It will also be a platform upgrade for payloads such as satellites.
New technology of China's space technology innovation
What will the rocket of the future look like?
reusable?
Highly intelligent?
In the near future, the Long March 8 rocket is expected to turn the rocket technology imagined by the public into reality one by one.
To realize the repeated use of rockets, engine thrust adjustment is an important technology.
In this launch, the Long March 8 launch vehicle applied engine thrust adjustment technology. This is the first engineering application in China's launch vehicle. It will carry out relevant preliminary technical verifications for subsequent reuse technologies and lay a solid foundation for the development of reuse launch vehicles.
In recent years, the high-density launch of China's carrier rockets has become normal and has repeatedly succeeded. However, flight failures and even flight failures have occasionally occurred. If the rocket has fault diagnosis and autonomous flight capabilities, in the event of a failure, the flight results can be adjusted independently. Significantly improved.
At 12:37 on December 22, Beijing time, the Long March 8 carrier rocket was successfully launched at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China, sending five satellites into the predetermined orbit with "one arrow and five stars".
Photo by Su Dong
The Long March 8 launch vehicle uses active disturbance rejection technology for real-time compensation control to improve the effect of active load shedding and solve the problem of large static instability caused by the large fairing.
In addition, this type of rocket also carried out on-line identification of flight failures during the taxiing phase, and carried out attitude control reconstruction based on the results of the failure identification, which improved the ability of autonomous adaptation and intelligence of the rocket's attitude control.
The Long March 8 rocket is also China's first medium-to-large rocket that has not undergone full-arrow modal tests in development, and uses a combination of virtual and real modal analysis technology.
Later, on the basis of the Long March 8 rocket, a fusion rocket will be developed to achieve electrical integration, two-level and one-vertical rapid launch, and a rocket that improves economy.
A new leap in China's aerospace business arena
The Long March 8 rocket was transferred to the engineering development stage in April 2018, and the factory review was completed in October 2020.
"It only took more than two years from the model demonstration to the first flight of the rocket to have the factory conditions, which is rare in the history of the development of a new generation of launch vehicles." Song Zhengyu said.
Experts said that there is still a certain gap between China's spaceflight technology and space powers in terms of ground launch technology, which is mainly reflected in the rocket test cycle, especially the longer time for the launch area.
In the future, the Long March 8 will adopt the "two flats and one vertical" model, that is, horizontal assembly, overall transportation in a horizontal state, and vertical transition and docking of the star cover assembly.
It is estimated that around 2022, the integrated Long March 8 carrier rocket will achieve "two levels and one vertical", which can greatly simplify the construction scale of the launch site. The launch area no longer needs a large-scale and complex tower, reducing construction costs.
Since the beginning of the design of the Long March 8 rocket, the integration of technology and economy has been fully considered, and effective cost control of the rocket has been achieved by reducing production costs and supporting costs.
With the subsequent enhancement of mass production capabilities, the time from signing the launch service contract to the implementation of the launch will be shortened to one year, and the network construction period will be further shortened.
"Changba rocket has a carrying capacity of 5 tons and a take-off scale of 356 tons. The carrying efficiency is among the best among domestic rockets. The increase in carrying capacity and the decrease in cost will inevitably bring high cost performance." China Carrier Said Duan Baocheng, deputy commander-in-chief of the Long March 8 carrier rocket of the Rocket Technology Research Institute.
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