China’s Manned Rocket Options

[hal_9000]

From Space.com
BOULDER, Colorado -- A commercial remote sensing spacecraft has caught Chinese space workers readying their second piloted space mission.

The Ikonos satellite, operated by Space Imaging of Thornton, Colorado, took images of China’s human spaceflight launch complex on October 3 and October 9, with a shadow covering much of the rocket between two structures. The very tip of the rocket can be seen emerging from the shadow.....

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/05101...unchcenter.html

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[Guest_Myran_*]

Shenzhou 6 about to be launched later today wednesday according to several sources.

[infocat13]

Shenzhou 6 about to be launched later today wednesday according to several sources.

The chinese of out done themselves ! china national television showed a cam inside the capsule at launch and a rocketcam on the launcher itself.I viewed this through solids seperation lost the state TV at this point...............................

[dilo]

any video link???

[RNeuhaus]

any video link???

Maybe yes if only after a successfull Shendzou's mission. Chinese goverment is very afraid of any space failure since it is a very powerfull national propaganda. As you know that the Chinese internet is being watched by Chinese goverment and any unwanted information is being censored.

Rodolfo

[hal_9000]

I don't know...... but I don't belive a lot in China...
It's possible that the launching already occurred many days ago!!!!
I belive in that also....

[deglr6328]

CCTV4 has live coverage. I hope you're fond of the word "buffering"....

[RNeuhaus]

Folks, what surprise is now! Now Shensdou-6 is already gone to space. Perhaps, this was a successfull launch today at 9:00 am Beijing Time.

»» China Launches Shenzhou-6 With Two Astronauts Onboard

[Tuesday, October 11, 2005] The Shenzhou-6 spacecaraft was launched on Wednesday at 9:00 AM Beijing Time from China's satellite launch center in Jiuquan located in northwest China. On board are two astronauts, Fei Junlong, 40 and Nie Haisheng, 41.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1070
That Web page has nil information by now....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4333158.stm
Good news for Dilo: This Web page has video of launching! That is after a successfull launch... It is a video of 2:30 minutes but after 41 seconds, the rocket is above of clouds.

Live video of the launch showed officials clustered in a large control room (many more than ones of NASA), dressed of white uniform, marking key points in the countdown and watching as the final moments ticked away before the mission made its fiery departure. As the clocks reached zero, one controller pushed the red launch command button, followed seconds later by ignition of the Long March's eight engines and liftoff. At the end of video, the members applauses of the successfull Shenzhou-6 entry to LEO. The rocket is composed of four solid rockets (I think so) and an main fuel rocket.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0510/11shenzhou6/
Very good report. It is the most detailed.

Have 5 days very nice trip to astronauts: Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng.

Rodolfo

[djellison]

Yup - they did live video feeds of the launch - and we have CCTV on Sky digital here and they're showing the launch procedure.

Those strap on boosters are liquid fueld, Solid Motors chuck out a lot of smoke, but they didnt, they're more like the old Ariane 4 liquid strap-ons, but I presume much larger.

Doug

[deglr6328]

but all that brown smoggy exhaust must be just loaded with extremely nasty NOx though.... To be fair however, the SRBs that use ammonium perchlorate must produce a substantial amount as well.

[djellison]

That brief burst of brown/red exhaust is something that the Titan 2 exhibited as well, i believe it's a small motor used to kick start the compressor turbine.

Doug

[hal_9000]

Yup - they did live video feeds of the launch - and we have CCTV on Sky digital here and they're showing the launch procedure.

Those strap on boosters are liquid fueld, Solid Motors chuck out a lot of smoke, but they didnt, they're more like the old Ariane 4 liquid strap-ons, but I presume much larger.

Doug

Those Liquid Motors must be RP-1/LOX.... I don't have a position about it...
and those Solid Motors must be HTPB/Ammonium perchlorate... I don't know too....

[djellison]

They're not solid motors - the whole vehicle is liquid fueled...
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/cz2f.htm

Solid motors would chuck out huge quantities of thick smoke - and if you notice, the CZ-2F has little engine plume once clear of the pad, much like a Proton or Soyuz launch.

The brown is actually a symptom of the fuel, not what I initially thought ( that harks back to me mixing up the reason for a strange noise before Titan 2 launch which WAS a little motor firing up the turbine, and the colour of the smoke chucked out which was due to the type of fuel ) It's all N2O4/UDMH for the CZ-2F - the strapons, the main stage ( which is simply the same motor as the strap ons 4 times over ) and the upper stage.

For instance, compare these two Atlas V launches

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/.../05pd1870-m.jpg

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av004/...hgallery/16.jpg

The first was purely liquid fueled.

The second has two solid-fuel strap ons.

See the difference in the plume

Doug

[dvandorn]

Yep -- those are basically the same fuel and oxidizer used by the Titan II. Storable propellants, non-cryogenic (thought perfect for ICBMs, until solid fuel motors struck everyone as even more storable and requiring less maintenance).

Of all the uses to which N204 and UDMH can be put, certainly launching manned spacecraft is one of the most benign. And I'd venture a guess that more of those fuels were used during Gemini and Apollo (for which the latter, of course, those same fuels were used on the CSM and the LM) than have ever been used testing and actually using nuclear-tipped weapons. Good thing, eh?

-the other Doug

[hal_9000]

They're not solid motors - the whole vehicle is liquid fueled...
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/cz2f.htm

Solid motors would chuck  out huge quantities of thick smoke - and if you notice, the CZ-2F has little engine plume once clear of the pad, much like a Proton or Soyuz launch.

The brown is actually a symptom of the fuel, not what I initially thought ( that harks back to me mixing up the reason for a strange noise before Titan 2 launch which WAS a little motor firing up the turbine, and the colour of the smoke chucked out which was due to the type of fuel ) It's all N2O4/UDMH for the CZ-2F - the strapons, the main stage ( which is simply the same motor as the strap ons 4 times over ) and the upper stage.

For instance, compare these two Atlas V launches

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/.../05pd1870-m.jpg

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av004/...hgallery/16.jpg

The first was purely liquid fueled.

The second has two solid-fuel strap ons.

See the difference in the plume

Doug

There is more here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_rocket

But upper stages of CZ-3A and CZ-3B use cryogenic fuel (LH2 and LOX) !!!

There is nice pics here

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2005s6/photos.htm