What's new about the new generation of manned lunar rockets? Reusable and intelligent
Long March 10 series rocket completes first-stage power system test
On the afternoon of the 14th, the Long March 10 series rocket, which will be used for manned lunar landing and other missions in the future, successfully completed the test run of the first-stage rocket propulsion system. This is the first large-scale system-level ground test of this series of rockets, which fully verified a number of key technologies and will lay a solid foundation for my country to achieve manned lunar landing before 2030.
The power system test is equivalent to a launch without taking off. This test was conducted at the 101st Institute of the Sixth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology. During the test, the three engines of the Long March 10 rocket started normally, worked stably, shut down on time, and all parameters were tested normally.
The Long March 10 rocket is a three-and-a-half-stage rocket developed for manned lunar exploration. The rocket is 92.5 meters long, weighs about 2,189 tons at takeoff, has a thrust of about 2,678 tons at takeoff, and has a carrying capacity of no less than 27 tons for the Earth-Moon transfer orbit. In the future, it will be used to launch a new generation of manned spacecraft and lunar landers. In addition, the Long March 10 is also designed with another booster-free configuration to carry out space station astronaut and cargo transportation missions.
According to the subsequent development plan, the Long March 10 series of launch vehicles will carry out the second test run of the first-stage power system in the near future to further verify other working conditions, laying the foundation for the smooth implementation of the manned lunar exploration project.
The Long March 10 series of rockets will undertake many important tasks in the future, including manned lunar landing. It is understood that the Long March 10 will include two models with multiple configurations. Let's take a look at the exclusive interpretation of CCTV reporters.
The Long March 10 series of rockets include two models: the lunar landing version and the near-Earth version. The lunar landing version is mainly used to carry out manned lunar landing missions, while the near-Earth version can be used to carry out near-Earth space station missions.
Xu Hongping of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation: The lunar version is mainly used to transport the lunar lander and manned spacecraft to the lunar orbit, so it has two configurations, one for launching the lander and the other for launching the manned spacecraft. The near-Earth version is currently being developed in two versions, which are mainly used in the operational development stage of the space station project, mainly for transporting people and goods.
The maximum diameter of the Long March 10 series rockets is 5 meters. They adopt the modular design concept of the new generation of launch vehicles. The lunar version and the near-Earth version can select corresponding modules according to different mission requirements and be assembled like "building blocks", which makes the development more efficient, the combination more flexible and the cost-effectiveness higher.
Xu Hongping of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation: The launch to the lunar orbit may require a greater carrying capacity, so our lunar version is a three-and-a-half-stage configuration, which means the first stage, the second stage and the third stage, plus two boosters. When developing the near-Earth version, we actually used the first stage as a universal module, and also made an adaptive modification to the second stage, so that the near-Earth version is a two-stage rocket with near-Earth orbit carrying capacity.
As a new generation of manned launch vehicles, what is new about the Long March 10 series rockets? What revolutionary technologies do they use?
In order to optimize the operating costs during the space station's operation phase, the first-stage rocket of the Long March 10 low-Earth version used for space station missions was designed for reusability. Its main engine has completed more than ten reusability tests and its development is progressing smoothly.
Xu Hongping, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation: The reusable first stage of the near-Earth version has been verified by scaled-down tests on land and at sea in the early stage. We also hope to enter the engineering verification stage as soon as possible. We have come up with some innovative methods of our own, and these methods should be used as reference in the development of other models in the future, and later we can develop some commercial near-Earth version rockets.
In order to ensure the safety of astronauts, the Long March 10 series rockets also have a "smart brain" and "smart rocket" related technologies, which will make the rockets more "intelligent". The rockets can autonomously detect and troubleshoot faults during flight, which can further improve the success rate of the mission.
Xu Hongping, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation: During the development process, we take into account some possible failure modes that we may think of. When some failures occur, we can continue to complete our established tasks through task re-planning and reconstruction of the entire system.
