Shenzhou-16 landing and possibly two launches from China this week

Date:
Mon, 30 Oct 2023 18:35:59 +0000

Description:
The Shenzhou-16 (SZ-16) spacecraft is due to come home after its crew completed a six-month The post Shenzhou-16 landing and possibly two launches from China this week appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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The Shenzhou-16 (SZ-16) spacecraft is due to come home after its crew completed a six-month stay aboard the Chinese Tiangong space station. In addition, a Chang Zheng 4C is scheduled to fly from Taiyuan the day after SZ-16s return, and a commercial launch involving CAS Spaces Kinetica-1 from Jiuquan may also happen this week.



Shenzhou-16 landing

The Tiangong space station, permanently occupied since June 2022, has
received a new crew aboard Shenzhou-17 to continue crewed space station operations. As a result, the crew of Shenzhou-16 is preparing to return home. They will have spent nearly 154 days in orbit with a scheduled landing on Tuesday, Oct. 31 at 00:11 UTC in the Gobi Desert.

Taikonauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu, and Gui Haichao, who launched to orbit aboard Shenzhou-16 on May 29, handed over Tiangong station operations to the Shenzhou-17 crew of Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin before leaving the station. The spacecraft undocked from the Tiangong space station at 12:37 UTC on Oct. 30.

The taikonauts undocked from Tiangong and performed a photographic survey of the space station before they left. This was the first time the Chinese program has had taikonauts perform a high-resolution survey of Tiangong,
which is presumably being done to inspect the stations exterior for signs of damage or wear. The Chinese taikonauts of the Shenzhou-16 mission. (Credit: CASC)

The taikonauts don their launch and entry suits, which are based on the Russian Sokol suits used onboard the Soyuz spacecraft, sometime before reentry. The deorbit burn will start somewhere over the South Atlantic before the spacecraft reenters the atmosphere.

The descent module of Shenzhou-16 will be the only part of the spacecraft
that will survive reentry. After the docking module is jettisoned, the
engines on the service module will conduct the deorbit burn before the latter module is also released. The descent module, with the crew onboard, will encounter maximum reentry temperatures on the order of 2,000 degrees Celsius, while the interior can see temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius for a short time.

Shenzhou-16 will be tracked by various assets in a line from a station in Swakopmund, Namibia in sight of the deorbit burn to the ESA station in Malindi, Kenya, and another Chinese station in Karachi, Pakistan. Yuanwang tracking ships have also been used in the past to support the deorbit burn, though it is not currently known if one is in position in the Atlantic. Tracking stations within China will take over as the spacecraft draws closer to the landing site. ESA tracking station in Malindi, Kenya, which has been used to support Shenzhou missions. (Credit: ESA)

The spacecraft deploys two pilot chutes at 10,000 meters in altitude,
followed by a drogue parachute, and then a single main chute at 8,000 meters altitude while it is descending to a touchdown approximately 50 kilometers north of Jiuquan its launch site. Shenzhous ablative heat shield detaches at an altitude of around 6,000 meters, and four small engines at the descent modules base fire two seconds before touchdown to soften the landing.

This sequence, like many other functions of the Shenzhou spacecraft, is derived from Soyuz spacecraft operations. Also derived from Soyuz operations are the procedures the Chinese use for the recovery of the taikonauts and the spacecraft itself.

The taikonauts are carried out of the spacecraft similarly to Soyuz cosmonauts. The crewmembers are seated through the recovery process and are taken for medical evaluation as they adapt to Earths gravity. Like the
Russian program, the Chinese also use military helicopters based on the Mil Mi-8 design during spacecraft recovery operations, along with other types based on Western designs, as well as numerous ground vehicles. Shenzhou-15 after touchdown in the Gobi Desert. Note the helicopter in the background. (Credit: Xinhua)

The Chinese human spaceflight program is run by the military, under the aegis of the China Manned Space Agency, and up until Shenzhou-16, all taikonauts
who flew into space were military officers. Gui Haichao is the first civilian to fly to space aboard a Chinese spacecraft, and the program has opened up to applicants from Hong Kong and Macau.

In addition, foreign crewmembers may be included in future Chinese human spaceflight missions. China also has signed on Belarus, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan this month to the planned International Lunar Research Station, a Moon base planned for the 2030s to be an alternative to the NASA-led Artemis program.

Chinese launches this week

Besides the Shenzhou-16 landing, China is also thought to be planning to launch a Chang Zheng-4C (CZ-4C) rocket from LC-9 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China. The flight is scheduled to launch on
Tuesday, Oct. 31 at 23:05 UTC, nearly 23 hours after the Shenzhou touchdown
in the Gobi Desert. A Chang Zheng 4C ignites its four YF-21C first-stage engines seconds before liftoff. (Credit: Xinhua)

The Taiyuan launch site is typically used for payloads needing to go to a Sun-synchronous polar orbit, and although the payload is not currently known, it is speculated that it may be Haiyang-2E. The Haiyang-2 series of
satellites is intended for ocean observation, and these types of satellites often use Sun-synchronous orbits so they can fly over a given spot on Earth
at the same time of day every 24 hours.

The CZ-4C, which uses storable but highly toxic hypergolic propellants, has flown since 2006 and is capable of lofting up to 2,800 kilograms to azhon Sun-synchronous polar orbit. The rocket uses three stages and is derived from the earlier CZ-4B rocket, with a key difference being a restartable upper stage. This flight would be the CZ-4Cs seventh flight this year.

The Chinese commercial spaceflight company CAS Space may also be flying a mission this week, though a launch date, time, and payload have not been revealed. The current date is listed as NET November 2023, after earlier having a NET October date. CAS Spaces Lijian-1 in the horizontal position prior to launch. (Credit: CAS Space)

The companys Kinetica-1 vehicle, also known as Zhongke-1A or Lijian-1, is a rocket with four solid-fueled stages. This rocket, capable of a payload of up to one and a half tonnes to a Sun-synchronous polar orbit, has flown successfully twice since July 2022. The third flight of Kinetica-1, like the first two, would occur from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and Site 130 was developed specifically for this rocket. This would be the second flight for Kinetica-1 in 2023.

CAS Space, headquartered in the southern city of Guangdong, is planning an upgraded Kinetica-1A vehicle, as well as reusable liquid-propellant rockets.
A suborbital space tourism launcher that is similar to Blue Origins New Shepard rocket is also planned. To this end, the company raised $87 million
US dollars this spring from a Series C funding round.

(Lead image: The Shenzhou-16 crew portrait before the flight. Credit:
Xinhua)

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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/10/shenzhou-16-landing/


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