Spaceplane!
A very busy and secretive September
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So I’m back from a brief vacation and so, so much has happened.
China had one failed launch and three successful launches, including one in which Bilibilisat finally took off. Rocket-maker Landspace raised $175 million, China lost a ground station in Australia, and the US Air Force released a new report on the Chinese space sector.
But most exciting, China launched a secret spaceplane! This whole project is shrouded in secrecy, so let’s first look at what we do and don’t know in some detail.
Space Plane
On Friday, September 4, a secretive spacecraft took off from Jiuquan and spent two days in orbit before landing.
Although the Chinese government has been very tight-lipped about what kind of spacecraft it was, it is widely believed to be a spaceplane and the South China Morning Post quoted an unnamed military source claiming that it was similar to the US Air Force’s X-37B, which is an uncrewed experimental spaceplane.
The USAF X-37B, rumored to be similar to China’s spaceplane. Source: Boeing via Rocket Rundown
It is important to keep in mind that this is much smaller than the spaceplane that most of us are familiar with — the US space shuttle.
For a size comparison (including the often-forgotten Soviet Buran shuttle):
Source: Wikimedia
For further evidence that the craft was much smaller than the space shuttle, it launched aboard a Long March 2F rocket. Here is a Long March 2F from 2016:
Source: Room
Some amateur video of the presumed spaceplane launch is posted on the Weibo account China航天. I’ve taken a screenshot here, and you can see that even if the fairing has been enlarged a bit, it’s still roughly the same size:
The Long March 2F has carried the Shenzhou spacecraft which is a bit larger than the Russian Soyuz but is roughly comparable.
Here is a comparison of the Soyuz and the US Space Shuttle (along with the Boeing Starliner and the SpaceX Dragon):
Source: Everyday Astronaut (I added the blue oval)
So, an area a bit larger than a Soyuz is probably the maximum size this craft could have been.
I think this is a good time for a look at the uncrewed X-37B, which is what SCMP’s source claimed was similar to China’s secretive craft. This Space.com article has a good description:
Like the space shuttle, the solar-powered X-37B space plane launches vertically, with the aid of a rocket, and cruises back to Earth for a runway landing. The diminutive space plane is designed to operate at altitudes ranging from 110 to 500 miles (177 to 805 km).
…The secrecy surrounding the X-37B and its payloads has spawned rumors that the vehicle could be a space weapon of some sort, perhaps tasked with capturing or damaging other nations' satellites.
But the space plane is likely too small and not maneuverable enough for such work, experts say. Instead, its chief mission is likely what Air Force officials have claimed all along: to test out new sensors and other next-generation satellite technologies, to see how they perform and hold up in the space environment.
"I absolutely think that's the primary mission," former Air Force orbital analyst Brian Weeden, who now works as a technical adviser for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, told Space.com just before the launch of OTV-2.
Various other aspects of the X-37B's design would make it a less-than-ideal space weapon, he added — including the craft's shuttle-style runway landings, which leave it vulnerable to attack by hostile forces.
"It can be tracked, so it's going to be hard for it to sneak up on anything," Weeden said. "And when it comes down itself, it's a very ungainly, slow-moving glider."
So what did the mysterious Chinese space plane do up there?
One thing we know is that it released an object while in orbit:
You can watch a video of the object here:
Personally I wouldn’t read too much into the satellite — it could have been just to test that the craft’s payload doors function properly in space.
The craft then landed two days later on September 6. Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, believes that the craft landed on a runway that was constructed in Lop Nur, an area of the Taklamakan Desert in the southeast of Xinjiang Province.
Source: Planet Labs, NPR
Most of the rumors are that the spacecraft is a spaceplane. However, it should be noted that we don’t have any pictures yet and the only official word from China is that it is reusable.
It’s always worth keeping in mind how little we really know for sure.
News Roundup
September 1: Satellite manufacturer Commsat held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new factory in Tangshan, Hebei.
September 6: Rocket company Space Transportation conducted a successful engine test (link in Chinese).
September 7: China launched the second satellite in the Gaofen 11 Earth observation series on a Long March 4B from Taiyuan.
The first Gaofen 11 satellite was launched on July 31, 2018.
September 9: Rocket maker Landspace held a C+ round of financing, raising $175 million.
September 12: A Kuaizhou-1A rocket carrying a Jilin-1 Earth observation satellite for the company Changguang Satellite Technology failed after taking off from Jiuquan. Andrew Jones at SpaceNews:
Saturday’s mission was the fourth Chinese failure of 2020 from 26 launches. Inaugural launches of the Long March 7A and the Expace Kuaizhou-11 failed, while an issue with the workhorse Long March 3B led to the loss of the Indonesian Palapa-N1 communications satellite.
The launch anomaly also brings into question two further Kuaizhou-1A launches planned for September 17 and 22. Airspace closure notices were issued for all three launches in recent days. In 2020 three U.S. launches (also including new LauncherOne and Astra rockets) and an Iranian orbital launch attempt have also ended in failure… Saturday’s launch was the first failure in ten flights for the Kuaizhou-1A.
September 17: The US Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) released a report on the Chinese space program: China’s Space Narrative: Examining the Portrayal of the US-China Space Relationship in Chinese Sources and its Implications for the United States.
I haven’t finished the report myself yet (it is 85 pages before endnotes), but SpaceNews says about the report:
A narrative advanced by China is that, unlike the United States, it takes an open and inclusive approach to international space cooperation, the report says. Chinese writings, further, depict the United States as undermining outer space as a peaceful frontier.
September 15: A Long March 11 successfully launched from the Yellow Sea carrying nine satellites, China’s second sea launch since its first in June 2019. The satellites were in the Jilin-1 Gaofen-03 series by Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co. (not to be confused with the government Gaofen series - gaofen just means high resolution). Two of the satellites were sponsored by outside groups; one for state TV network CCTV, and one for social media site Bilibili. This was the second attempt for Bilibili’s satellite; back in July the first version was lost when a Kuaizhou-11 launch failed.
September 16: In a series A round of financing led by a Zhejiang University fund, rocket maker Space Pioneer raised 100 million RMB (about 14.8 million USD). Space Pioneer raised the same amount this past April.
September 19: Beijing announced plans for a 14.8 billion aerospace cluster in the science park in Zhongguancun. Zhongguancun is located in Beijing’s Haidian district and is near Beijing’s top universities.
September 21: The state-owned Swedish Space Corporation said that it would not renew its contract with the Chinese government to use a satellite ground station in western Australia for the Chinese space program due to geopolitical risks. China downplayed the importance of the decision, saying that it still had plenty of capability. There is at least a decade remaining on the current contract.
September 23: Jim Bridenstine, the head of NASA, used the specter of China being the only nation with a space station to argue that it is in the interest of the US to maintain a presence in Earth orbit after the ISS, saying, "it would be a tragedy, if, after all of his time, and all of this effort, we were to abandon low Earth orbit and cede that territory." He argued that the US should encourage a commercial American presence in orbit that NASA would have access to, rather than building another government space station.
September 25: Rocket-maker Shaanxi Zhongtian Rocket Technology, a subsidiary of state-owned CASC, had an IPO on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, raising more than 500 million RMB (more than 73 million USD).
The satellites are jointly operated by the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and will form a constellation with the Gaofen-1 and Gaofen-6 satellites (link in Chinese). The Ministry of Emergency Management was created in 2018.
The HJ-1A and HJ-1B were launched in 2008 and the HJ-1C was launched in 2012.
Upcoming
September 29: Dr. Bhavya Lal will discuss key findings from a recent report she led on the emergence of the commercial space sector in China.
I discussed this report back in July (when this newsletter was still called China NewSpace).
Until next time
My name is Cory Fitz and I write the Taikonautica newsletter. To make you smarter about China’s rapidly evolving space industry, Taikonautica brings you translations of Chinese-language articles, as well as a roundup of links and news.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me on Twitter at @cory_fitz
I just discovered your newsletter and I love it! Keep it up :)