capsule returns to Beijing
CZ-7 seems less efficient on paper, and likely will turn out to be less efficient, but with a 12 tonne payload, it apparently just out-lifted, on its inaugural launch, every Falcon 9 and Atlas 5 flown to date, not to mention every other launch vehicle flown this year to date.
This is completely bogus. Falcon, Atlas, and Proton all put 20+ tonnes into perfectly good LEOs. It's beyond dishonest to suggest their payload was less, just because they chose to use that capacity to do additional burns, to put a smaller final payload into a higher energy orbit.
The heaviest
payload (not upper stage and propellant) ever launched by Atlas to any orbit was 7,490-something kg (Cygnus OA-4). The heaviest ever launched by Falcon 9 to any orbit was CRS-8 at probably 10,360 kg. CZ-7 put about 12,000 kg into orbit. On its first launch.
This rocket's capability is in the EELV-Medium Plus range. When equipped with an LH2 upper stage, it will be able to carry more payload to GTO than any Atlas 5 or Falcon 9 has yet carried, regardless of claimed performance, according to
http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/long-march-7/ .
- Ed Kyle
CZ-7 seems less efficient on paper, and likely will turn out to be less efficient, but with a 12 tonne payload, it apparently just out-lifted, on its inaugural launch, every Falcon 9 and Atlas 5 flown to date, not to mention every other launch vehicle flown this year to date.
This is completely bogus. Falcon, Atlas, and Proton all put 20+ tonnes into perfectly good LEOs. It's beyond dishonest to suggest their payload was less, just because they chose to use that capacity to do additional burns, to put a smaller final payload into a higher energy orbit.
The heaviest payload (not upper stage and propellant) ever launch by Atlas to any orbit was 7,490-something kg (Cygnus OA-4). The heaviest ever launched by Falcon 9 to any orbit was CRS-8 at probably 10,360 kg. CZ-7 put about 12,000 kg into orbit. On its first launch.
So what? FH will best that by a significant margin on its first flight, but I suspect you won't care to note that.
And since when do you care about LEO payload? (Anytime you compare SpaceX to someone else's rocket it is suddenly only GTO or lunar transfer or mars transfer that matters)
This rocket's capability is in the EELV-Medium Plus range. When equipped with an LH2 upper stage, it will be able to carry more payload to GTO than any Atlas 5 or Falcon 9 has yet carried, regardless of claimed performance, according to http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/long-march-7/ .
More double standards. For some LV's, you use "will be able to carry" figures, where as for others you use "yet carried" figures. At least pretend to be objective.
So what? FH will best that by a significant margin on its first flight, but I suspect you won't care to note that.
Of course I will, assuming it happens.
More double standards. For some LV's, you use "will be able to carry" figures, where as for others you use "yet carried" figures. At least pretend to be objective.
Unlike the others, CZ-7 actually demonstrated something close to its claimed LEO capability.
- Ed Kyle
Please stop the "launch vehicle testosterone" arguments. They serve no useful purpose and they are not relevant to this thread which is about the CZ-7's maiden flight..
There's
CMSEO article from June 27 that states that the LM-7 certified new avionics. an locally developed RTOS, Nd a distributed, multiplexed architecture which is designed to enable reusability.
I found this very interestingly and wonder if the LM-5 will sport the same avionics. I would guess the LM-6 doesn't since it was developed by a different team. But LM-7 is a mix of the LM-2F and the original 3.35m core LM-5.
Edit: added the article's URL.
Two new objects cataloged, 41636 and 41637 in circular 280 x 290 km orbit. I suspect these are the Tiange
1 and 2 satellites, released after the 2nd YZ-1A burn.
So the profile could be
YZ-1 sep from stage 2 (C) in 200 x 379 km
Eject separation motor covers G,H,J,K into 200 x 560 km orbits
Release D, E and F into 200 x 380 km orbits
F well tracked and decaying at similar rate to C; possibly AoLong-1
D changed decay rate on morning of Jun 26, now decaying quickly and should reenter in next couple of days
E disappeared morning of Jun 26 after possible small manuevers (or just cross-tagging/bad tracking)
YZ-1 burn 1 to 287 x 381 km orbit around 1255 UTC Jun 25
Objects A and B then appear.
B is is probably Aoxiang Zhixing
A disappears early Jun 26 (an additional TLE set on Jun 27 may be spurious, is my hunch)
YZ-1 burn 2 to 280 x 290 km
Objects L and M then appear - maybe Tiange 1 and 2
YZ-1A and reentry capsule deorbit at 0730 Jun 26
YZ-1A separates from reentry capsule
YZ-1A then maybe returns to orbit and makes more orbit changes before deorbiting over the Pacific;
is apparently not tracked by the US in this phase, if this phase indeed occurred.
The remaining mystery is what the story is with object A and objects D/E. I don't see how D/E can be the RV/YZ-1A since they stayed in the initial CZ-7 delivery orbit, ahd the RV/YZ-1A must have moved to the later orbits, suggesting the A elements belong to it. Or maybe the graphics are bogus and D/E is the RV and associated equipment, performing its own deorbit, while A is YZ-1A and it flew a separate mission not attached to the RV.
I'm (obviously!) still confused.
The capsule seemingly does not have solid motors for landing
So they have progressed from copying Soyuz mold lines to Dragon mold lines? 
On a more serious note, congratulations on the flight! 
Not even remotely funny
But accurate. I would *love* to see China fly a design that isn't a close derivative of something else, but they haven't. But maybe that's the smart approach, let others do high risk projects and learn from them.
Not accurate, the fact that are a limited number of optimum designs does not imply copying.
The heaviest payload (not upper stage and propellant) ever launched by Atlas to any orbit was 7,490-something kg (Cygnus OA-4). The heaviest ever launched by Falcon 9 to any orbit was CRS-8 at probably 10,360 kg. CZ-7 put about 12,000 kg into orbit. On its first launch.
The heaviest
payload (not upper stage and propellant) ever launched by a moon-mission Saturn-V to any orbit was 5,900 kg (Apollo command module). The heaviest ever launched by Falcon 9 to any orbit was CRS-8 at probably 10,360 kg. CZ-7 put about 12,000 kg into orbit.
Hence CZ-7 > Falcon 9 > Saturn V, by this metric.
This rocket's capability is in the EELV-Medium Plus range. When equipped with an LH2 upper stage, it will be able to carry more payload to GTO than any Atlas 5 or Falcon 9 has yet carried, regardless of claimed performance, according to http://spaceflight101.com/spacerockets/long-march-7/ .
Alternatively, you could compare like-to-like to GTO
Demonstrated Claimed
Falcon-9 5,300 kg (SES-9) 8,300
Atlas-5 7.000 kg (MUOS) 8,900
CZ-7 0 7,000
Do we have any picture or at least computer simulation of the YZ-1A?
Do we have any picture or at least computer simulation of the YZ-1A?
The images captured in this message may show a simulated version of YZ-1A providing a deorbit burn for the NGCV.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39414.msg1554535#msg1554535
Here's another capture that shows what is likely the stage.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39414.msg1554463#msg1554463
- Ed Kyle
I've been giving it much thought, since that simulations look nothing like the Fregat silhouette of the YZ-1. But then it hit me: they launched a 12tonne payload, and that's quite probably way over the YZ-1A structural limits.
Could it be that they made a structure around the YZ-1 to qualify also the Tianzhou moments of inertia and LM-7 structural limits and to carry the payload's extra weight so the YZ-1 didn't collapse?
Several western media sources have picked up that "refueling" announcement, and are predictably going way overboard with it. Case in point:
https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/02/china-refuels-satellite-in-orbit/
But given that the refueling experiment never separated from the upper stage, it seems the best they could have done was demonstrating in-orbit operation of some sort of fuel transfer within the experiment, or perhaps between the experiment and the upper stage. If so, sounds less impressive than what DARPA's OrbitalExpress did 9 years ago:
http://archive.darpa.mil/orbitalexpress/pdf/oe_fact_sheet_final.pdf
Well, this is a good time to post this little factoid: this payload is called "Tianyuan-1" and is built and operated by a team at the
National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), best known for hosting some of the world's fastest supercomputers and has already operated 3 small satellites. The payload involves transferal experiments of 3 (not named) different fuels.
Source
http://www.satview.org/spacejunk.php?sat_id=41628ULooks like Satview's entry prediction for the upper stage was off by a rev. Saw a nice fiery trail of destruction headed ENE over Los Angeles about 15-20 minutes ago, including some debris separation from the main trail. I was driving, so no pictures.
