Author Topic: China's manned Moon plans  (Read 140143 times)

Online Steven Pietrobon

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #120 on: 03/04/2011 05:48 am »
Thanks for posting that Satori.

"The rocket is envisaged to have a payload of 130 tonnes"

That's the same payload mass that NASA wants for SLS. The Congress wants 130 tons which is 118 tonnes, the same as Saturn V.

"The diameter of the planned heavy-lifting rocket is expected to be two times that of the current largest one"

Well, that would be Plan D as that is the only vehicle with a 10 m diameter. I did some cost estimates of the various Plans for a production run of 15 vehicles. All prices in FY04 millions of dollars (I used the calculator at http://cost.jsc.nasa.gov/SVLCM.html )

            Plan A   Plan B   Plan C   Plan D
---------------------------------------------
Development  9,592   11,833   13,418   12,562
Production   7,834    8,090    8,658    7,449
---------------------------------------------
Total       17,426   19,923   22,076   20,011
Unit Cost      522      539      577      497
---------------------------------------------

Plan C is 10% more expensive than Plans B and D, so we can rule that out. Plan A has the cheapest cost, but I don't believe it can achieve a 50 t TLI payload. The first stage has the same mass as the Saturn V, but the second stage is using LOX/Kero instead of LOX/LH2. That leaves Plans B and D. Total cost is very close, but production cost of Plan D is 5% cheaper. That leaves Plan D as the logical choice.

I also did a costing of using four CZ-5 flights for each Lunar mission. That gave a total cost of $11,714M or $781M for each Lunar mission. Plan D becomes cheaper only after 29 further missions are performed. That is, the break even point is 44 missions.
« Last Edit: 03/04/2011 05:51 am by Steven Pietrobon »
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Offline Satori

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #121 on: 03/08/2011 07:34 am »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #122 on: 03/11/2011 01:39 pm »
The Chinese plan seems to be: launch someone every three or four years, do that indefinitely, make big noises about vague future plans, and then a miracle happens and Chinese are walking on the Moon.

Yes, that looks essentially correct.  A less pejorative way to phrase it would be, "The Chinese plan is to systematically retire risk on a sustainable schedule, take pride in doing so, and rely on future technology developments to meet overall program objectives."

Doesn't it sound better phrased that way?  Wouldn't it be neat if the U.S. had a plan like that?

Late to the party, as usual.  I gotta say, Sdsds,  that was an excellent comparison of spin style.  I prefer your wording.

I don't know of anybody--maybe you do--who claims that it is not "possible" to send humans to the Moon using only EELV-class rockets.  The question is what is the "best" method of doing that.

Just chiming in here.  Of course it's possible.  Our guys just don't want to do it that way.  That document you posted sure looks to me like the Chinese have equalled the US in creation of powerpoints.  Maybe we shouldn't be "scared" after all?  Or should we?  Powerpoints can be "scary".
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Phillip Clark

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #123 on: 09/17/2011 09:53 am »
The presentation was made by Scott Pace after he left NASA, but it was clearly something that NASA had done.  I never asked for the NASA study, but presumably an enterprising researcher could try to get hold of it.

Several years ago NASA was directed by Congress to perform a review of the Chinese space program.  Apparently all they did was to collect up a bunch of news articles and present them to Congress, rather than to do an actual assessment themselves.  I therefore found this chart to be somewhat surprising, because it implied that NASA had indeed done some kind of assessment.

Just reviving this discussion ............ in view of the recent Chinese papers availavle on another thread here, I am looking anew at China's manned lunar programme options.   Does anyone have a copy of or a link to the Scott Pace/NASA study which is referred to?
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Offline Dmitry_V_home

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #124 on: 09/17/2011 06:51 pm »
Chinese lunar ship

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #125 on: 09/17/2011 06:53 pm »

Offline aquanaut99

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #126 on: 09/17/2011 06:58 pm »


We need a translation of that ASAP! It looks very interesting indeed.

Am I reading 2025 as the date for the lunar landing?

Offline sdsds

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #127 on: 09/17/2011 07:15 pm »

Figure 5 shows the plan pretty clearly.  It's a three launch architecture, with two launches providing Earth departure stages and the third providing the payload that gets pushed through TLI.  After LEO assembly the TLI burn takes place on day 7, and on day 10 a dedicated stage is expended to insert into lunar orbit.  The lander returns to LLO on day 12 and is jettisoned; the Shenzhou-like spacecraft performs TEI and the capsule reenters.

But on the last page, what is it saying about AJ26??
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Offline aquanaut99

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #128 on: 09/17/2011 07:45 pm »

Figure 5 shows the plan pretty clearly.  It's a three launch architecture, with two launches providing Earth departure stages and the third providing the payload that gets pushed through TLI.  After LEO assembly the TLI burn takes place on day 7, and on day 10 a dedicated stage is expended to insert into lunar orbit.  The lander returns to LLO on day 12 and is jettisoned; the Shenzhou-like spacecraft performs TEI and the capsule reenters.

Yes, I saw that. It would appear that this is a mission architecture based on an upgraded version of the future CZ-5 launcher (called CZ-5DY and equipped with 6 strap-on boosters instead of 4? And does it say 50mT to LEO? That would put it in the range of the Falcon Heavy... Interesting). Note the a), so it seems to be 1 proposal of two, the other being b) the superheavy lift rocket (2 designs, one with 4 LRBs and one with 4segmented SRBs?)

I'm also very interested in figure 9. It seems to be a sort of masterplan up to 2025 with space stations and unmanned lunar exploration up to the eventual landing. If so, it seems a bit outdated, because the thing that looks like Tiangong-1 should have flown in 2009-2010 according to this plan...
« Last Edit: 09/17/2011 07:47 pm by aquanaut99 »

Offline Moe Grills

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #129 on: 09/17/2011 09:27 pm »
Chinese lunar ship

Looking at the illustration,
the Shenzhou-derived CSM appears way too small; and the Lunar lander appears way too large for such a combination to park in LLO.
The DeltaV for such a small CSM would be way too small for that to happen safely.

  However...I realize now that different Lunar mission strategies and techniques are possible.
Example: If the Lander (with crew onboard) separate from the CSM (with pilot onboard) while approaching the Moon, then the CSM & Lunar lander
could separately park in LLO; carry out Lunar orbital maneuvers to
harmonize their separate orbits; and then the lander and crew could descend to the surface.
 And both craft could have plenty of DeltaV to do it.
(i.e,; the CSM could have a DeltaV of +1800-2000m/s approaching the Moon; the Lander could have a DeltaV of + 4500m/s approaching the Moon.)

Offline savuporo

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #130 on: 09/18/2011 01:53 am »
I tried uploading to google docs and translating there. The result is not much better, although _somewhat_ more interesting than hieroglyphs.

One bit that is comprehensible : whoever wrote this, has a clear idea of "why" go to the moon.
Orion - the first and only manned not-too-deep-space craft

Offline Phillip Clark

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #131 on: 09/18/2011 08:37 am »

The three-launch mission profile looks to be a variant on the four-launch profile which Blackstar has credited to a study by Scott Pace in a previous posting on this thread.   So, I wonder how much Chinese authority this variant has?
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Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #132 on: 09/19/2011 02:31 pm »
Quote
"The rocket is envisaged to have a payload of 130 tonnes"

We're actually going to be "outsourcing" SLS.

Whoops, gotta go....
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Phillip Clark

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #133 on: 09/25/2011 01:17 pm »

I have been playing around with the numbers for landing a Chinese crew on the Moon using four CZ-5 launches as proposed by Scott Pace (and quoted by Dwayne Day/Blackstar) and using three launches of the "CZ-5DY" vehicle as suggested in this paper.

Scott Pace's idea just about works, but the fuelled lunar lander comes to just over 12 tonnes compared with the Apollo lunar module's 15.1-16.4 tonnes.   This suggests a very basic vehicle - especially since the lunar module has serious mass problems - but still one more capable than the Soviet L-3 LK lander.

As far as the 50 tonnes to LEO "CZ-5DY" is concerned, does this exist outside this particular paper?   I have a feeling that it might simpy exist only in the author's imagination rather than being something that is being or has been studied by the Chinese.
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Offline Dmitry_V_home

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #134 on: 09/26/2011 07:11 am »

I think that while Chineses are at a stage of conceptual researches, no more. Therefore to perceive seriously these pictures while it is premature.

Offline Phillip Clark

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #135 on: 09/26/2011 03:51 pm »

I think that while Chineses are at a stage of conceptual researches, no more. Therefore to perceive seriously these pictures while it is premature.

I am taking the heavy lift launch vehicle data as simply being indicative of what the Chinese are thinking, rather than being a hard and fast design.

I have managed a good mass model for the CZ-X with liquid strap-ons (I call it CZ-X-L) but the data I get for the solid strap-ons version (CZ-X-S) seems to come out too heavy.   Still playing with the numbers.
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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #136 on: 09/26/2011 06:57 pm »

By my calculations CZ-X-L can't deduce on a flight trajectory to the Moon weight more than 39-40 metric tons. If it is valid so, use of the second carrier (CZ-5) looks reasonably.

Offline aquanaut99

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #137 on: 09/26/2011 07:03 pm »
I am taking the heavy lift launch vehicle data as simply being indicative of what the Chinese are thinking, rather than being a hard and fast design.

I have managed a good mass model for the CZ-X with liquid strap-ons (I call it CZ-X-L) but the data I get for the solid strap-ons version (CZ-X-S) seems to come out too heavy.   Still playing with the numbers.

If they do decide to build a heavy lift launcher, I predict they will go for the liquid strap-on version. The Chinese have no experience whatsoever with large segmented solids. Plus, they seem, in general, to follow the Soviet/Russian path, which favors liquid boosters.

A Chinese heavy lift launch vehicle will more likely be a Chinese Energia than a Chinese SLS.

And that is not a bad choice, IMO.
« Last Edit: 09/26/2011 07:04 pm by aquanaut99 »

Offline baldusi

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #138 on: 09/26/2011 07:28 pm »
I am taking the heavy lift launch vehicle data as simply being indicative of what the Chinese are thinking, rather than being a hard and fast design.

I have managed a good mass model for the CZ-X with liquid strap-ons (I call it CZ-X-L) but the data I get for the solid strap-ons version (CZ-X-S) seems to come out too heavy.   Still playing with the numbers.

If they do decide to build a heavy lift launcher, I predict they will go for the liquid strap-on version. The Chinese have no experience whatsoever with large segmented solids. Plus, they seem, in general, to follow the Soviet/Russian path, which favors liquid boosters.

A Chinese heavy lift launch vehicle will more likely be a Chinese Energia than a Chinese SLS.

And that is not a bad choice, IMO.
The new LM family strategy is to have 2.25m, 3.35m and 5.2m cores, and mix and match. So, a 5.2M core can be augmented with two 2.25m, two 3.35m cores, two 2.25m and 2.35 or four 3.35m. A natural extension would be a Heavy with at least two 5.2m booster cores. If they ever go to a wider core, I would obviously expect them to use the 5.2m cores as boosters. It's only too logical.

Offline Phillip Clark

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Re: China's manned Moon plans
« Reply #139 on: 10/01/2011 08:41 am »
Of course, I know from experience in studying the Soviet space programme in the 1970s and 1980s it is far easier to calculate what might happen and invent imaginary space missions than it is to predict what might happen.

So, please bear this in mind with what follows.

Two CZ-5 launches, one with a fulled TLI stage, ~25 tonnes, and the second with a Tiangong class module with an LOI stage.   Dock the two in LEO and fly to selenocentric orbit.

Then follow Scott Pace's idea of two CZ-5 launches, one with a second TLI stage and the second with a beefed-up, lunar variant of Shenzhou with an LOI stage.   Again, docking in LEO and then fly to selenicentric orbit.

The Chinese could then have a small base in selenocentric orbit that would allow for long-duration crews in selenocentric orbit for the first time.   Maybe a month or so (compared with less than a week for Apollo, it's long duration!).

This could be an intermediate stage before the heavy lift launcher comes online for a Chinese landing, allowing a manned reconnaissance from selenocentric orbit.

Just a thought and no proof that this would happen, of course!
I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane - WJ.

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