Author Topic: CZ-8 maiden flight with XJY-7 - Wenchang - December 22, 2020 (04:37 UTC)  (Read 43923 times)

Offline otter

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http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/22/c_139610000.htm

China's new carrier rocket Long March-8 makes maiden flight
2020-12-22 13:36:09

WENCHANG, Hainan, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's new medium-lift carrier rocket Long March-8 made its maiden flight on Tuesday, sending five satellites into planned orbit, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

The rocket blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan at 12:37 p.m. (Beijing Time).

The Long March-8 rocket has a total length of 50.3 meters, with a takeoff mass of 356 tonnes. It can carry a payload of at least 4.5 tonnes to a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 km.

The rocket fills the gap in China's launch capability to the sun-synchronous orbit from 3 tonnes to 4.5 tonnes, and is of great significance for accelerating the upgrading of launch vehicles, according to the CNSA.

Offline tangdou8

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« Last Edit: 12/22/2020 05:55 am by tangdou8 »

Offline tehwkd

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Online Alter Sachse

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07-W8 (?)
« Last Edit: 12/22/2020 06:18 am by Alter Sachse »
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Offline FutureSpaceTourist

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Offline PM3

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XJY-7classified remote sensing technology test (~3t)
Hisea-1C-band SAR satellite (180 kg)
Yuanguangmaterial science experiments (20 kg)
Zhixing-1A / ET-SMART-RSS  remote sensing (6U)
Ping’an-1 / Tianqi-8IoT

https://spacenews.com/china-launches-first-long-march-8-from-wenchang-spaceport/
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Online Galactic Penguin SST

Astronomy & spaceflight geek penguin. In a relationship w/ Space Shuttle Discovery. Current Priority: Chasing the Chinese Spaceflight Wonder Egg & A Certain Chinese Mars Rover

Online Galactic Penguin SST

US tracking data of objects:

47296/2020-102A: 503 x 515 km x 97.44°
47297/2020-102B: 504 x 513 km x 97.44°
47298/2020-102C: 504 x 512 km x 97.43°
47299/2020-102D: 503 x 510 km x 97.43°
47300/2020-102E: 500 x 509 km x 97.44°
47301/2020-102F: 392 x 522 km x 97.44° (LM-8 2nd stage)
Astronomy & spaceflight geek penguin. In a relationship w/ Space Shuttle Discovery. Current Priority: Chasing the Chinese Spaceflight Wonder Egg & A Certain Chinese Mars Rover

Offline Chris Bergin

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Offline input~2

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Offline Stan Black

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Curious to see that the booster engines are not 90º to the two inboard engines.

Offline input~2

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Launch video from channel 7
https://tv.cctv.com/2020/12/22/VIDEvxVMWeb2pbk7YllriawF201222.shtml
Below: XJY-7 separation
« Last Edit: 12/22/2020 03:17 pm by input~2 »

Offline limen4

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Offline Liss

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A little film on Tianqi-8 aka Ping'an-1: https://www.bilibili.com/s/video/BV1oz4y167Vx
This message reflects my personal opinion based on open sources of information.

Offline edkyle99

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I believe CZ-8 is China's first two-stage rocket with GTO capability, though better to call it a 2.5-stage rocket.  A simplification step for what has been a complex launch vehicle stable relative to 2 and 2.5 stage Ariane 5/6, Atlas 5/Vulcan, Falcon 9, H-2A/B, etc..  It will be interesting to see if they scale this idea up to handle CZ-7A payloads somehow.

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 12/23/2020 09:36 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline koroljow

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Offline Skyrocket

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Beautiful photos in https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50147.msg2171445#msg2171445 and https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50147.msg2171445#msg2171445. But I see only one engine powering the core stage. Shouldn't there be two YF-100?

Yes, indeed. The engine configuration does not match the drawing. In reality they are rotated 45°, so that both engine are inline behind each others for this perspective. This would match the configuration of CZ-7.

Offline koroljow

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Yes, that's the only way to explain. Must be the unique point of view of both cameras. But still hard to imagine how the big nozzles (in reality bigger than in the drawing) fit into the tight space at the busy end of the 1st stage. The center nozzle looks like 80% of the stage diameter. But there are videos of the launch preparations. And yes, it fits...
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