Category China in Space

As can be seen, specific results were made available on Shi Jian 8. Results from the earlier 22 missions were associated not always with individual missions, but with groups of missions, and the individual satellites flown were often not identified. Nevertheless, the Chinese made a significant effort to present program outcomes collectively, so they are reviewed here.

The first scientific results of the series were reported from 1987, with the first of six materials processing flights [17]. Rice seeds brought back to the Earth crossed with Earthly grains produced high yield rates, some giving 53% more protein. Space-grown yeast offered higher and faster fermentation rates, opening up new prospects for a space beer industry. Algae flourished in orbit. Altogether, 300 varieties of seeds and 51 kinds of plants were carried in seven different biology packages. Once back from space, seeds from the plants grown on board – rice, carrot, wheat, green pepper, tomato, cucumber, maize, and soya bean – were planted out by the Institute of Genetics, further note being taken of succeeding generations over the following years. Space-exposed rice were set on a field of 667 ha, a substantial terrain, to test their yields. The results varied. Some strains of rice improved from their space experience, while others did not. Some grains grew faster and were fatter, heavier, and sturdier. Wheat experiments produced new strains that had short stems and grew fast. One strain of green pepper, called the Weixing 87-2, demonstrated a 108% increased yield, 38% less vulnerability to disease, and a 25% improved vitamin C content, bearing fruit long after terrestrial peppers had lost their leaves. Bumper 400-g green peppers were bred – twice as much as normal ground size. A fifth-generation space tomato had a yield 85% higher than its terrestrial rivals and doubled its resistance to disease. Space-grown cucumbers demonstrated a surprising ability to withstand greenhouse mildew and wilt. Female cucumber flowers were observed to flourish in the space environment. Asparagus seeds flown in space also thrived on the Earth. Overall, these outcomes matched similar results from Russian space biology experiments in which some plants thrived, others wilted, and many grew into strange shapes.

The missions of the 1990s produced more results. Exposure to weightlessness created a genetic variation in seeds which meant that the replanted seeds doubled their weight and grew taller fruit with a higher resistance to disease, a higher proportion of vitamin C, and a longer shelf life. In 1998, following these experiments, a Space Vegetable Foundation was established in Anning by the Academy of Sciences, where it further developed and sold “space fruit” to the open market. By 2002, space vegetable gardens had been established in Hebei, Gansu, and Sichuan, and 12 varieties of wheat, rice, tomato, peppers, and cucumber were grown. The space-developed cucumbers were especially successful, growing 20% longer than the purely Earthbound variety, and had a strong disease resistance (as well as tasting better, according to the experts). This was a big program, for, by the time of Shi Jian 8, space-bred seeds had been planted on 560,000 ha of farmland, producing 340 tonnes worth €50m.

Results from the Earth observations carried out on FSW missions were sparse until outcomes of the FSW 2-3 were reported in 1996. A real problem here is that no published photographs were ever attributed to FSW and images of the ground published in the Chinese media during the period of the program appeared to come from Western satellites. This may have reflected either limited distribution channels or, more Ukely, a desire not to reveal the resolution of the cameras when their principal purpose was military. Nevertheless, China claimed substantial benefits from the photography work of the FSWs. A new map of China was commissioned in 1949, but only 64% of it had been finished by 1982: 600 FSW pictures were able to finish the job in a matter of months. The total number of islands off the Chinese coast was recalculated at 5,000, instead of 3,300. The country’s farmland was recalculated at 125.3m ha rather than 104.6m ha. The FSW satelhtes had compiled detailed Earth resource maps of Beijing and its eastern environs, Tianjin and Tangshan. Oil deposits were discovered in Tarim, chromium and iron deposits in Inner Mongolia, and coal elsewhere. The FSW satellites discovered remnants of the Yuan dynasty’s ancient city of Yingchang: they even uncovered buildings erected in 1270 by the first Yuan emperor, Kublai Khan, for his daughter, Princess Luguo Dachang. Images tracked the path of the Great Wall across northern China and found the old walls of the Chengde summer palace. FSW satellites were used to prepare geological survey maps, identify the optimum routes for railway lines, and track the patterns of silting in the Huang (Yellow), Luan, and Hai Rivers. They tracked water and air pollution, observed soil erosion, and identified geological fault lines. The FSW satellites located goldfields in Mongolia, and oil and natural gas in the Yellow River delta and offshore.

Data from the FSW and Feng Yun series, combined with information from the American Landsat and the French SPOT satellites, provided a worrying picture of desertification in Qinghai in the north-west. Dynamic changes were taking place, according to the satellite data: dunes had advanced, grassland was damaged, and water resources had been misused. Elsewhere, soil erosion had been noted. Positively, the rate of afforestation had been assessed and was seen to be growing.

The use of windbreak forests in northern China had already regenerated the ecology of the area. Earth resources satellites carefully tracked the evolution, speed, and impact of the Yellow River: as a result, timely warnings about floods were given before the inundations in 1991, minimizing damage. Satellite tracking of the 1987 forest fires in Xinanlang enabled firefighters to save up to 10% of the forests from further damage. By 2000, China reported, as accomplishments of the FSW series, the mapping of the sand deposited to sea by the Yellow River (Huang He), the finding of seven mineral deposits for the Capital Iron & Steel Co., four new oilfields in Xinjiang, the completion of a general territorial survey, 80 material science experiments, and improved tomato yields of 20% with 40% reduction in disease.

A progress report was issued on the outcomes of the FSW materials processing and biology missions, such as the results of experiments from gallium arsenide superconductors. Eighteen different materials were used to develop crystals in orbit, the dominant ones being gallium and lithium. These experiments, developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hebei Semiconductor Research Institute, found that electronic devices made from crystals in space outperformed those developed on the Earth. Space-manufactured crystals were more sensitive, carried more current, and were less prone to voltage noise or likely to suffer leakage. Tests on alloys, tellurium, and gallium arsenide yielded positive results, crystals having high purity. Space-grown gallium arsenide crystals were better and were the basis for making quality superconductor lasers.

To test the value of algae in closed-cycle systems, 17 types of algae and zooplankton were carried into orbit in a 759-cm3 incubator, some surviving well but others succumbing. Building on experiments on the Soviet Salyut orbital stations, cell cultures were brought into orbit, principally leukemia T-cells and carcinogenic

samples from human lungs, finding that their growth slowed considerably due to the combination of zero gravity and the radiation environment [18].

Eight years after the start of Zi Yuan, China introduced a new, more specialized program of Earth resources satellites, focused on the environment and disaster­warning. Called “Huanjing” in Chinese, meaning “environment”, two were launched together from Taiyuan on 7th September 2008 into a high-inchnation, Sun-synchronous orbit. The program was geared to the 74-nation intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO), 2005, led by China and the United States under the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters, 2000, intended to coordinate the supply of images to disaster-struck regions. China stated that one of its purposes was to follow land-use development, especially illegal land use by profiteers.

These were small satellites, both 475 kg and based on the standard design or bus called CAST968 (China Academy of Space Technology, 1996, “8” for the month or design number). The theory behind the “bus” idea was to develop a standardized design which could be adapted for a variety of missions, standardization lowering the cost of production. They carried four cameras: two CCD imagers of 30-m resolution and a swath of 700 km; an ultraviolet camera of 100-m resolution and a swath of 50 km; a super-spectral imager (A only); and an infrared camera of 150-m resolution and a swath of 750 km (B only). The satelhtes had a revisit orbit of four days, a crossing time of 10:30 each day, and a service life of three to five years. They were aimed at circular orbits of 649 km at 98°, similar to the Yaogan (below), but lower than the maritime observation satellite, Haiyang, at 798 km (below). Data transmission rates were 120 МВ/sec (A) and 60 МВ/sec (B). Data were sent to the China Resource Satellite Application Centre, completed in 2008, which also handled CBERS.

First images were received on 9th September 2008 and the satellites were declared operational on 20th March 2009. Within a year, 510,000 images had been provided for the Ministry of Environmental Protection and a further 70,000 for other registered users. In the area of disaster relief, the satellites provided imaging that was used for two great snows (Tibet and the north), earthquakes (e. g. Wenchuan), forest fires (Australia), a mud slide (Chongqing Wulong), river flood (river Huai, Yellow River), and frozen seas (e. g. Bohai). The photographs were especially useful in identifying transport routes whereby rehef can be provided. The Huanjings also followed algal blooms, water sediment levels in rivers, risks of water contamination, sand storms, air pollution, straw-burning, and oil spills, both for environmental protection and subsequent law enforcement. Earthquake images from satellites were able to pick out collapsed buildings (red) and intact ones (green). They played an important role in mapping landslides, glacial lakes, and the Bohai Sea ice disaster of winter 2009-10. Both satelhtes were used by CEODE to give assistance to Australia during the bush fires in Victoria, Australia, in February 2009, being repositioned to fly over the disaster areas twice a day. The Huanjings beamed down 130 GB of data over the following three weeks in optical and infrared, following the intensity and direction of the fire fronts, both to assist the fire fighters and to enable residential communities to be evacuated in time. The Huanjing program has been well documented, certainly in comparison to Zi Yuan [13].

They will be followed by Huanjing 2, which will carry a microwave radiometer, microwave scatterometer, and radar altimeter. Before them, the radar will be tested by Huanjing 1C, which was first exhibited at the Zhuhai air show in 2009. Huanjing 1C is a larger 890-kg radar satellite, with 5-m resolution and a swath of 400 km, able to make four-day revisits. Ultimately, according to the Academy of Sciences’ long-term plan for space development, Roadmap 2050, China’s objective is to build data on climate changes across up to 20 parameters (e. g. methane, ice and

– 7l) o’ XO O’ 00 O’ 100 O’ MOO’ 120 0’ l. ilMI’

00 O’ |00 ‘0’ I |0°0’ 1200′

Straw-burning detected by Huanjing. Courtesy: COSPAR China.

Map of earthquake zone, collapsed buildings, taken from Huanjing. Courtesy: COSPAR China.

snow coverage, aerosols, nitrogen oxides, land use, cloud and precipitation, forestry) so as to construct a reference model of climate systems and climate change. This will be fed by next-generation three-dimensional microwave sensing technology to measure the oceans, salinity, rain, vegetation, and the main features of land masses. The data will be stored in what is called the Digital Earth Scientific Platform, which comprises:

• a central node, called the Dawn supercomputer;

• three network nodes (Miyun (Chinese landmass), Kashi (western Asia), and Sanya (South China sea to Mekong);

• ground stations in Xian, Changchun, Shanghai, Sanya, Kunming, Lhasa, Kashi, and Urumqi;

• overseas stations in Brazil and the Zhongshan base at the South Pole;

• 18 sub-nodes, the intention being to update data through the system daily.

The series is summarized in Table 6.5.

Table 6.5. Huanjing series.

Huanjing 1A 7 Sep 2008

Huanjing IB

CZ-2C from Taiyuan.

Chapter 1 described the current stage of Chinese piloted spaceflight: the building of a basic space station. Tiangong was the culmination of a 20-year program of manned spaceflight, though one which had its roots in a precursor program as far back as the 1970s. This chapter narrates the precursor missions before manned flight (Shenzhou 1-4), the first manned flight (Shenzhou 5), the week-long flight of two astronauts (Shenzhou 6), and the first Chinese spaceflight by a three-man crew with the space walk by Zhai Zhigang (Shenzhou 7). These missions made China definitively the third spacefaring nation in the world.

ORIGINS: PROJECT 714

Like everyone else, the Chinese were greatly impressed with Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight into space on 12th April 1961, which spurred the Academy of Sciences into holding a series of symposia starting that summer. Twelve meetings were held between then and 1964, organized by Tsien Hsue Shen. Their purpose was to keep in touch with developments abroad and discuss how a manned and deep-space exploration program could best be organized in the distant future. Tsien’s book, An Introduction to Interplanetary Flight (1963, Science Press, Beijing), the basis for instruction of all engineers in the space program, included a chapter on manned spaceflight. So the idea of a manned flight was there from the very beginning.

China followed the Soviet practice of making vertical flights with biological cargoes and animals (the first dogs flew into the upper atmosphere from Russia in July 1951). China first fired a biological container 70 km high on the T-7AS-1 sounding rocket on 19th July 1964, with a complement of four white rats, four white mice, and 12 biological test tubes with fruit flies and other test items, their behavior and reactions followed by a camera. Two further missions flew on 1st and 5th June 1965. The rocket was then adapted as the T-7AS-2 to take dogs and fly to an altitude of up to 115 km. The carrying of a dog required a much more advanced life-support system, but, as a precaution against a delayed recovery, arrangements were made for a pressure valve to be released during the descent to let in fresh air. During the flight, the dog’s heartbeat, temperature, respiration, and breathing rates would be

measured by a tape recorder and radiation dosage measured. The first mission duly took place on 15th July 1966, with China’s first space dog, Xiao Bao (“little leopard” in Chinese). An Air Force helicopter crew spotted the descending cabin and a happy, tail-wagging dog was quickly retrieved. A bitch, Shan Shan (“coral” in Chinese), followed on 28th July. Plans were under way to fly a monkey that September, but the cultural revolution intervened and the mission did not take place.

A conference of scientists, engineers, and political leaders held on 4th March 1966 laid down the broad lines of future space development, especially the artificial satellite project (project 651, Chapter 2) and proposals for a recoverable satellite (project 911, Chapter 4). We now know that there was also a closed session in which the idea of a manned spacecraft was discussed at the Jingxi Hotel, parallel to the main space conference. The National Defence Science Committee COSTIND (see Chapter 3) formed a three-strong committee to develop the concept. The committee spent 20 days working out the aims, objectives, and methods of a Chinese manned flight, after which it filed a 20-page report. It was decided that, if the recoverable satellite project went well, a manned program would follow and was assigned the name of Shuguang, or “dawn” – a title decided in January 1968.

In April 1968, the government took a decisive step by setting up the Institute of

Space Medicine in north-west Beijing (originally it was called the Space Medicine Project Research Institute and it has also been identified as the Research Centre into Physiological Reactions in Space and Institute of Medical Engineering in Space) and Tsien Hsue Shen was made the first assistant director. The center was equipped with acceleration chairs, pressure chambers, centrifuges, and revolving chairs. The institute was to remain permanently in existence, despite the subsequent ups and downs of the manned program. Its continued operation was one of the main reasons why Chinese denials concerning a manned space program were never entirely convincing.

Tsien Hsue Shen asked COSTIND and the Air Force to recruit China’s first group of astronauts to train to fly the first manned mission. They followed the Soviet practice of recruiting from young Air Force pilots with a perfect medical record, rated on their psychological stability and ability to act calmly under pressure. Selection began on 5th October 1970. A thousand pilots were sent to the new Institute of Space Medicine for screening. Like their Russian counterparts, they were not initially told the real purpose of the tests, although they guessed soon enough, especially when they were flown on weightless trajectories in specially adapted aircraft. When they were shown films about Soviet manned spaceflight, they knew for certain. Their numbers were whittled down from 88 to 20 on 15th March 1971. China thus became the third country in the world to select an astronaut squad. The process was so secret that no one, apart from those immediately involved, knew about this at the time or for another 30 years. In the event, one of the 20 left almost immediately but we do know the names of the 19 others (Table 8.1). They reported for duty on 13 th May 1971.

All were bom over the years 1934 (the same as Yuri Gagarin) to 1948. They were all pilots and some had risen to the ranks of squadron or divisional commander. Most were Chinese MiG pilots and some had shot down American planes over

Vietnam or American drones over China itself. The final squad of 19 was called “project 714”, after the year and month that confirmed their selection (April 1971), and the term seems to have been eventually applied to the whole project. Project 714 was assigned 500 support workers, from supervisors to trainers and guards. It was intended that the first flight would take place at the end of 1973. Instructors were brought in from the universities in such subjects as physics, sciences, rocketry, and English. A British Trident aircraft was obtained from China’s civilian airline, CAAC, for weightlessness training.

Shuguang was approved by Chairman Mao on 14th July 1970 and guided by his defense minister Lin Biao. No sooner than had their training got under way than the project was affected by a bizarre political crisis, though not one atypical of the cultural revolution. On 13th September 1971, Minister of Defence Lin Biao died when his jet crashed in Mongolia after what was seen at the time as a failed coup attempt. By sheer chance, Lin Biao’s plotters had used the same code number, “project 714”, as the signal for the coup and, in the paranoid atmosphere, the spaceflight project came under suspicion. There were further difficulties. Because the

project was a secret one, they found it difficult to commandeer resources. The initial equipment of the squad comprised only one car and one telephone. Budgets were underestimated and they had difficulty getting flying time from the Air Force. Conditions were difficult, but they had the benefit of classes from no less a person than Tsien Hsue Shen himself. The following spring, Mao Zedong declared that Earthly needs must come first. The 19 astronauts returned to their Air Force units and, on 13th May 1972, the last standing staff member of project 714 left the office and turned out the lights. The furthest it got was building a wood and cardboard spacecraft mockup and preparing some space food in toothpaste tubes.

Granted that the first successful recoverable mission flew in 1975, the earliest a manned Chinese spaceflight could have taken place would have been the late 1970s. The FSW would have been a tight fit for an astronaut – but it was actually bigger than the capsule in which John Glenn circled the Earth for America’s first orbital flight. The FSW-style of re-entry, a sudden, sharp, diving re-entry over Sichuan, would have given him a rough, but survivable, return to the Earth.

Even without a manned space program, the Institute of Space Medicine continued its work. It actually expanded to 60 technical staff who carried out work in space medicine, suits, food, and equipment. By way of a postscript to the project, as part of a medical test, the Institute for Space Medicine contacted all the members of the astronaut group 30 years later. All were still in good health and none had developed illnesses, such as cancer. Most now held high ranks in the Air Force. They had chosen well. In October 2009, it was revealed that China’s first astronaut would have been Fang Guojun, aged 33 at the time. He was photographed and interviewed in the Chinese press. He was allowed to break his vow of secrecy many years after the program itself was made public knowledge in 2001. Yang Liwei later responded to his congratulatory letter and acknowledged the work of his pioneer group. Chief designer of Shuguang was Tu Shancheng, bom in 1923 in Jiaxin, Zhejiang, later a graduate of Cornell University. After the project closed, he went on to the development of the first communications satellite, program 863, and the feasibility studies of what eventually became the first manned flight.

It was hardly a surprise that Mars followed closely behind the Moon in Chinese deep-space ambitions. In summer 2003, China Academy of Sciences Centre for Space Science and Applied Research expert Liu Zhenxing reported that Mars had been examined as part of a project 863 planetary exploration study. The first phase in this study had been a look at the exploration of Mars to date by other countries and the results obtained. This had helped the researchers to draw up some initial possible objectives for Mars exploration science and some outline spacecraft designs. Liu Zhenxing ventured the opinion that China should now examine the key technologies for unmanned Mars exploration, such as the calculation of orbits, appropriate launch systems, and a deep-space tracking network. Again, this suggested an approach similar to the new Moon project: theoretical studies, followed by a debate about the range and scale of possibilities, followed by the hardening of decisions into a concrete project. A series of scientific papers on flights to the planets began to appear in the universities from the late 1990s [16]. The model of a small spacecraft to orbit Mars was pictured in the Shanghai Daily in May 2005.

Russia provided an early opportunity for China to send a small spacecraft to

Mars. Ever since Mars 8 had crashed into the Pacific in 1996, Russia had been trying to return to Mars exploration and, after many false starts (mainly due to financial problems), had prepared a mission to bring samples back from Mars’s tiny moon Phobos, called Phobos Sample Return. For the Russians, there was a big attraction if China were to join the project, for the Chinese would bring a cash contribution, smoothing out Russia’s financial problems and making the eventual departure of the mission much more certain. Although the Chinese involvement made the mission a little more complicated, this was outweighed by the scientific gain and their funding. At a late stage, speciahsts in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in China also contributed a 400-g device to grind Phobos rock for in situ analysis by the Russian lander.

Thus, an agreement was signed on 26th March 2007: Phobos Sample Return would carry a 115-kg satellite attached to its side, called Yinghuo 1, “Yinghuo” being the ancient Chinese astronomical word for Mars, also known as the “glittering planet” and the Chinese word for “firefly”. The role of Yinghuo was carefully chosen. Its formal objectives were to investigate the Martian magnetosphere, plasma distribution, the interaction of the solar wind with Mars, and the gravity field, and make a determination as to why Mars lost its water. According to the director general of the National Space Science Centre, Wu Ji, most recent missions had concentrated on the follow-the-water-to-find-life approach, meaning that the Martian atmosphere had been neglected. The planned mission would fly well ahead of the small American Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, not due for launch until 2013. Yinghuo’s study of the atmosphere could give important clues as to the planet’s climatic history and why water had disappeared from the surface.

The mission profile was that, three orbits after Phobos Sample Return arrived in its initial Mars elliptical equatorial orbit of 800-80,000 km, 72.8 hr, 0.7°, it would detach Yinghuo at a separation speed of 2 m/sec. Phobos Sample Return would then maneuver to meet Phobos at 9,700-km altitude. Russia and China would calibrate their instruments together and receive reports on the ionosphere from their two spacecraft simultaneously in quite different orbits, giving them an additional scientific bonus. Yinghuo’s orbit was set to make an ellipse through the plasmasheet in the Martian tail, swing around the side of Mars, and pass through the bow shock and magnetosheath on the sunward side. Their joint mission would last two years. Yinghuo would remain in the orbit where it was detached (800-80,000 km) but it was one likely to be perturbed over time by solar radiation and the non-spherical shape of Mars to reach an inclination of between 21.7° and 36°. Wherever it went, it was intended to use ground stations in Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, and Urumqi to follow its orbit to a precision of 100 m. China also obtained permission to use both the ESA and Russian deep-space tracking networks. Just as the Chinese used a communications satellite as the basis for their first lunar probe, this time they used a miniaturized version of the ocean observation satellite, Haiyang, adapted as a small spacecraft measuring 75 x 75 x 60 cm. Yinghuo had a 950-mm x-band dish for communications, a 12-W transmitter on 8.4 and 7.17 GHz with a data rate of 8­16 kps, and two solar arrays each of three sections and 5.6 m across, generating 90­180 W. The instruments are listed in Table 9.3.

Table 9.3. Yinghuo instruments.

Wide field-of-view camera: 200-m resolution, weight 1.3 kg Satellite-to-satellite radio occultation sounder, weight 3 kg Fluxgate magnetometer, range 256 nT, weight 2.5 kg Plasma package

Ion analyzer (two): range 20 eV to 15 keV Electron analyzer: range 20 eV to 15 keV

The camera was tested out extensively on the ground and images were taken of our own Moon to verify its capabilities. At 80,000 km out, Mars would fill most of the field, but, at close approach, it would image terrain of 525-729 km. The camera was not intended for mapping (the spacecraft would not have the capacity) but to monitor sandstorms and for “public outreach”. The magnetometer was located at the end of the solar panel, 3.2 m from the center of the spacecraft, with two sensors 45 cm apart. The plasma instruments comprised two identical ion analyzers in the range 0.02-10 keV, measuring both its present level and escape rate. The joint occultation experiment with Phobos Sample Return spacecraft was one of the most unusual. Here, Phobos Sample Return would transmit a signal on 416.5 MHz and 833 MHz to a receiver on Yinghuo: as the signals penetrated the Martian ionosphere, their frequency shift would make it possible to characterize its features and measure its electron density. Typically, the signaling sessions would take place when the two spacecraft were at opposite ends of their orbits behind Mars, so as to

get the flattest possible angle over the Martian atmosphere. Another experiment was designed to test the finding of the Soviet probe Phobos 2 that there was a dust ring around Mars, trailing behind the moon Phobos and, if so, its cause [17].

In advance of the mission, the spacecraft underwent a series of tests for vibration, noise, vacuum conditions, illumination, solar array deployment, and power systems. Yinghuo arrived in Moscow in time for its October 2009 launch. Although the Chinese satellite provided additional resources for the project, scientists became more and more nervous as they tried to integrate the two spacecraft in time for launch less than two months ahead. At the last team review of the project a month before launch, it was decided to delay the project until the next launch window two years later. This was not the only such project delayed, for America’s Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, was similarly postponed to 2011 while at an advanced stage.

Phobos Sample Return was eventually launched at night on 8th November on the Zenit 2SB, entering a parking orbit of 206-341 km, 51.4°. The solar orbit insertion burn did not take place and the 13,500-kg stage, the main part of which was fuel, remained stubbornly stuck in Earth orbit. Every day for two weeks, the spacecraft computer commanded preparations for the Mars insertion burn over South America, orientated the spacecraft, and made a pre-firing maneuver. Each time, though, the control system shut the system down just before the burn, which never took place, but the pre-bum maneuver had the effect of gradually raising its orbit while simultaneously exhausting its fuel. At one stage, ESA made contact with Phobos Sample Return through its tracking station in AustraUa, but Russian ground controllers were never able to do so and override the fault on their system. The spacecraft eventually crashed into the Pacific off the coast of Chile in January. An enquiry blamed a badly designed computer control system with poor components, compounded by a communications system that could only work in deep space (and not in low Earth orbit), exacerbated by the lack of marine tracking systems at the critical point of the Mars injection bum over South America. It was a sickening re­run of the earlier Mars 8 failure.

The Chinese did their best to hide their disappointment at this outcome to such a cleverly constructed mission, costing them their first chance to get data back from Mars. After the crash, the director general of the National Space Science Centre, Wu Ji, spoke of how China hoped to be able to contribute a mission four years later, during the 2015 window, but it would now have to follow objectives different from MAVEN. In reconsidering their plans, the Chinese indicated that they would go the three-step route of orbiter-lander/rover-sample return, much as they had on the Moon. Increasing numbers of planning papers were published, on the best trajectories to follow and course corrections, for example. Project 863 funding was made available to study trajectories, navigation, sensors, antennae, and long­distance communications. Aerobraking systems were simulated. The Beijing Institute for Mechanical and Space Engineering (institute §508) tested airbags, a six-bag system being favored. Work also began on the radars, indicating a preference for the more precise but sophisticated and difficult method of a powered descent [18].

The outcome was a proposal to government for a Mars 2015 mission, using a DFH communications satellite, with aerobraking to enter the desired pre-landing orbit. The proposal to government was for a 2,000-kg orbiter with a small demonstration lander, with a CZ-3B launch in 2015, arrival in 2016, and operations until 2018. Following aerobraking, the orbiter’s planned path was an elliptical polar one with a low point of 300 km. Its purpose would be to explore the environment of Mars and analyze the chemical composition of its surface. The planned payloads were a camera, surface – penetrating radar, infrared spectrometer, gamma-ray spectrometer, high-energy particle detector, and solar wind particle detector, transmitting information back on two x-band antennae. The demonstration lander, which was in the shape of an aeroshell, would be 50 kg and parachute a rocket down to a semi-soft landing at the southern fringes of the arctic with the intention of functioning three to five days on the surface sending back information on a UHF antenna [19]. Three landing sites were selected on the southern fringes of the Martian arctic.

Exploratory studies have already been made of other possible Mars missions. Yuan Yong and his colleagues in the Aerospace System Engineering Institute of Shanghai outlined the idea of a Mars penetrator. The idea was to use a satellite like Yinghuo, equip it with two 50-kg penetrators, 90-120 cm long and 15-20 cm wide, and launch it on a CZ-3B. A parachute would open at 17 km, slowing the spacecraft until it was dropped at 2 km. Although the penetrator would impact at between 80 and 100 m/sec, it should be possible to design it to withstand impact forces of up to 10,000 G. Its objective would be to, over 10 Mars sols, image the surface, provide meteorological data, probe the physical and mechanical characteristics of the regolith, and look for water and life. Landing sites were under consideration at both the arctic (better for water) and equator (better for life). The penetrator would carry a descent camera, panoramic camera, thermometer, and sound recorder. In anticipation of the mission, China commissioned another overseas tracking dish in Nequen, Patagonia, Argentina, in 2012.

Meantime, Yao Kerning and his colleagues at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics sketched an aircraft that would travel in Mars’s thin atmosphere. Aircraft designs and possible flight paths – 650 km straighthne and 100 km rectangular – were mapped in the region 28-36°S and longitude 187-191° [20]. American engineers had originally promoted such a mission as far back as the 1970s, but they had never managed to attract funding. Worse, by 2012, the American Mars program was in disarray, with budget cuts forcing NASA to abandon or delay future collaborative Mars missions.

The next step of the mission was to bring an unmanned spacecraft up to Tiangong. China had never carried out an orbital docking before and, for that reason, was unwilling to risk a crew on a first mission. The Russians had carried out two automatic dockings in 1967 and 1968 before proceeding to a manned one in 1969. The manned Chinese spacecraft, Shenzhou, was well able to fly automatically and

the first four flights had been without a crew. Shenzhou itself had a number of improvements compared to earlier models: apart from the rendezvous and docking system, it had an on-orbit design life of 180 days, meaning that it could stay attached to a space station for up to six months. To maintain proficiency in life-support systems, though, Shenzhou 8 carried two rubber-made dummy astronauts. The Soviet Union had likewise flown dummies in advance of its first manned mission, with some unexpected results: when rural villagers reached the landed cabin before the recovery crews, they were found trying to “revive” what they took to be a badly injured cosmonaut!

In the third seat was SIMBOX, an unusual international collaborative experiment. The SIMBOX (Science In Microgravity BOX) was a joint experiment with the German space agency, the DLR. It was a 25-kg, 34-liter experimental box with 40 units for fish, algae, plants, bacteria, worms, and cancer cells, designed to make immunology tests. It was big enough to include a small aquarium, as well as the pumps, lighting, and sensors necessary to support them. Of the 17 SIMBOX experiments, 10 were Chinese, six German, and one joint. It was built in Friedrichshafen in southern Germany by Astrium with seven German universities (Erlangen, Hohenheim, Magdeburg, Tubingen, Freiburg, Hamburg, and Berlin). One German-Chinese experiment was to test the crystallization of proteins. Another experiment involved testing the production of food, oxygen, and clean water in anticipation of long-duration spaceflight.

Shenzhou 8 arrived at Jiuquan on 23rd September even before its target, Tiangong, had left. Lift-off was at 21:58 UT on 31st October, but the following morning locally. Television cameras showed Shenzhou 8 lifting into the night sky, followed by a contrail in the cold upper atmosphere. Look-back cameras on the top stage imaged the bottom stage falling away, to cheers in mission control. Shenzhou was in orbit 10 min later at 261-314 km, 42.8°. Practical astronomers on the ground followed the two spacecraft as they crossed the sky near Beijing as two bright but unblinking, fast-moving stars. Tiangong was like a magnitude + 2 star, the same as Polaris, the North Pole Star.

contribute their dreams of the future, some 42,891 being selected. They were installed on a microchip, to be recovered after the landing, the dreamers being entitled to download a certificate of authenticity from the site afterwards.

When it entered orbit, Shenzhou was 10,000 km behind Tiangong. By this stage, the station’s orbit had dropped down to 328-338 km. Shenzhou adjusted its orbit five times to close the distance over the following two days. Shenzhou’s radar picked up Tiangong at a distance of 200 km, following which it turned on its optical and laser sensors and microwave radar. On 2nd November, by the time of final approach at an altitude of 340 km, Shenzhou was closing in on the station in darkness at a rate of 20 cm/sec. Once the two docking rings met, Tiangong’s 12 hooks engaged to pull the two spacecraft together and a hard dock was confirmed 12 min later. Docking took place at 17:28 UT on 2nd November. It was Tiangong’s 542nd orbit. They remained locked hard together for the next 12 days.

To make sure that the docking was not just a lucky first, a second test was built into the mission. On 14th November at 11:27, Shenzhou 8 withdrew to 140 m from Tiangong. The purpose of the exercise was to repeat the docking, but in much brighter sunlit conditions, which would be a more demanding test of the optical systems. This exercise took 30 min and the spacecraft were reattached at 11:53 UT. The joined spacecraft could be spotted from the ground as a magnitude 0 star. Pictures of the link-up were relayed to the ground using the Tian Lian 1 and 2 data relays, which, between them, provided unbroken communications. This was the exercise that Liu Wang was to follow seven months later.

On 16th November at 10:30, Shenzhou undocked for the second time, moving away to 5 km before beginning preparations for return to the Earth. After 24 hr, the orbital module at the front was separated and then the service module at the back before the cabin headed into re-entry. Eleven kilometres above the Earth, a static pressure altitude annunciator-controller commanded the drogue, brake, and main parachutes to open, with the cabin fully under the main parachute by 6 km. Shenzhou 8 was down on the ground at 11:32 UT on the 17th, experiments removed, and the cabin swiftly returned to Beijing for analysis. German scientists retrieved their SIMBOX. Shenzhou 8’s orbital module eventually decayed out of Earth orbit on 2nd April 2012.

Tiangong raised its orbit to 360 km on 18th November. Air quality in the laboratory was checked regularly. During the interval, the tracking ships Yuan Wang 3 and 5 returned to their home ports in January, Yuan Wang 6 making it back in February after a 154-day cruise of 50,000 km. In the meantime, there was a good science return from the Tiangong station, reported chief designer Qi Faren. Instruments were giving back readings on space weather, energetic particles, magnetic fields, and atmospheric density, while another technical experiment was testing fuel cells as a power supply for future spacecraft. Fuel cells had been used as far back as 1965 on Gemini 5 to generate electrical power, oxygen, and water, and had subsequently been used in both the American and Russian space programs.

Although the next Shenzhou had been expected at the end of March, in February, there was a flurry of confused reports. First, the mission was off until the summer

and would be unmanned, raising questions that the previous autumn’s maneuvers had been unsuccessful. Eventually, there was a formal statement that the mission would indeed fly in the summer, between June and August, but it would definitely be manned. There had been no particular difficulties with Shenzhou 8, it was confirmed, but no reason was given for the new schedule. Increased solar activity had reduced Tiangong’s orbit, so it was raised on 23rd March back to 364 km. Tiangong readjusted its orbit to prepare for the forthcoming Shenzhou 9 on 26th May and on 11th and 14th June.

The first missions to Tiangong were given dramatic effect by a film distributed throughout China. The film Flying was issued by the August First Film Studio, the cultural wing of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The studio enlisted the help of the Asia Speed of Light Technology Company to create the special effects, which involved full-sized Shenzhou and Tiangong models, spacesuits, robot arms, and impressive digital simulations of weightlessness and space walks so as to ensure the maximum possible authenticity. Filming took five months and included some sequences shot in Star Town in Moscow. The film was based on the upcoming Tiangong mission but, for dramatic effect, Shenzhou 10 was involved in a collision in space and running out of air. Two men and a woman, led by hero Zhang Tiancong, had to launch within seven days to rescue the stranded yuhangyuan [3].

China’s newest launch site is Hainan, a large but poorly known island to the south­east of China with a maritime border with Vietnam. It rose briefly to prominence when an American EP-3 spy-plane was forced down there in early 2001 and its crew interned. A sounding rocket site was built on its west coast in the mid-1980s, where it was used for five Weaver Girl sounding rockets over 1988-91, missions resuming in 2011.

First reports that Hainan might be used as a new, large-scale space base came in 2000. Hainan offered a location closer to the equator than Xi Chang and better communications, especially for outsized components such as the upcoming large Long March 5 rocket. Hainan promised a 7.4% payload advantage on Xi Chang, sea-based delivery of rocket stages, and launches out over the ocean, conferring a considerable safety advantage. The precise location selected was east of Wenchang, a city of 520,000 (small by Chinese standards) on the north-east of the island, 65 km from Haikou. The precise location was Longlou on the Tonggu Jiao peninsula

Taiyuan Launch Center

Guhecun

Technical Center Satellite Testing Faciity

Shentangpingxiang

Taiyuan launch center map, showing its two pads. Courtesy: Mark Wade.

jutting out from the north-eastern shore of Hainan Island on a site 19.658/19.678°N and 111.013°E. To clear the site, though, it is estimated that up to 6,000 people were relocated.

Hainan is a two-part operation. The three existing launch sites – Jiuquan, Xi Chang, and Taiyuan – were dependent on the railway system, which limited the girth of rockets to be transported to 3.35 m. The new Long March 5 was more than 5 m in diameter, which could not be transported on the railways. Instead, they required an even older system of transportation: the sea-going barge. It was decided to build the new rockets on the Chinese mainland in Tianjin in northern China just south-east of Beijing – already part of the grand canal of China – and then transport them down the coast to the new launch site on Hainan, in much the same way as the Americans transported large rocket stages and tanks from the southern states around the coast to Cape Canaveral.

The official soil-turning ceremony in Hainan took place on 14th September 2009 and was given much publicity in the Chinese press. Set picturesquely amidst coconut groves, the launch site was a 20-km2 area only 3,000 m from the coast. The new site was strongly promoted and part-financed by the Hainan regional government, which hoped to attract in foreign investment (e. g. Japan), high-tech industries, and tourism. The initial cost of construction was estimated at ¥7.4bn (€500m). Later, it was promised to build a visitor center and entertain visitors with a model lunar landscape. A museum would house the Shenzhou 1, 2, and 3 cabins. The island is potentially a major tourist resort, boasting white sand beaches, mangrove forests, and Confucian temples.

Substantial progress had been made by 2012. Construction was well under way for two pads, one for the CZ-5, the other for the CZ-7, the rockets to be transported there on a 2,800-m trackway from a double vehicle assembly building. The site buzzed with cranes, trucks, and cement mixers. Work had also begun on two island tracking stations, one at Tongguling, 5 km to the east, and the second in the Xisha Islands (also called the Paracel Islands), far to the south-east.

Simultaneously, construction began of a rocket manufacturing plant in the new industrial area at Binhai, near Tianjin. Ground of a 313-ha site was broken here on 30th October 2009, construction costing an initial ¥1.5bn (€180m) with a final completion cost of ¥10bn. Binhai will make 12 CZ-5s a year, its centerpiece being a 220,000-m2 workshop. The first spacecraft processing facility was completed in 2009 and up to 21,000 people were working there by 2011 [5].

For the sake of completeness, one should mention military rocket bases. The principal base is in Harbin, Manchuria (location: 45.8°N, 126.7°E), home of China’s main silo-based Inter Contintental BalUstic Missile (ICBM) strike force, dating to 1981. The base built up to a complement of four Dong Feng 5 A missiles by 1992 and 20 by the turn of the century, their present level. To prevent accidental launches, warheads are kept separate from these rockets, which are not fuelled – a system called de-alerting. In addition, China’s strike force comprises 10-15 solid-fuelled road-mobile DF-31As of shorter range, with the future prospect of one or two Julang (“great wave”) nuclear submarines, each with 12 Polaris-type missiles. China has two minor missile bases: Xyanhua (40.36°N, 115.03°E) and Luoning (34.23°N, 111.39°E). So much for the launch sites. Next we turn to China’s families of launchers.

The FSW series evolved through three phases. It was originally intended to test a recoverable system and as a precursor for manned spaceflight (see Chapter 8). When the early manned program was cancelled, it was used for Earth observations, military and civilian, although only limited civilian results were published and none military. The photographic role continued to the end, when it was divided along Soviet lines of close-look and area surveys. From 1987, the program developed a third role, in biological, life sciences, and materials processing experiments of ever greater sophistication, using improved and more versatile designs, the most recent exemplar being Shi Jian 8, with a successor, Shi Jian 10, still to come. In the end, it turned into a multi-purpose program of military and civil photography and scientific and applications experiments. The only other country with a similar capacity in recoverable cabins was Russia, with its Bion and Foton series. The series is summarized in Table 4.2.

Some Western experts have taken the view that FSW was primarily a military photo-reconnaissance series, imaging the Earth with film recovered from the landed cabin, like the Russian Zenit and Yantar series. The other experiments were, in effect, add-ons to take advantage of spare cabin space. There is strong evidence to support the military photographic role in the use, by the Chinese, of Jian Bing designators which are suggestive of a military purpose. Phil Clark, the British expert who analyzed the behavior, orbital patterns, and maneuvers of Soviet photo­reconnaissance satellites, noticed a similar pattern of area-survey and close-look missions in the FSW series. What appears to be the end of FSW series coincides with the start of the Yaogan program (Chapter 6), which appears to have the capacity for digital imaging, making the film-recovery system of FSW outdated. Concluding the chapter, Table 4.3 is a technical summary of the FSW series under its Jian Bing designators.

As the Chinese space program expanded in size in the early 2000s, ever more specialized subsets of missions emerged. A new, small, Earth resources satellite, Tansuo, was introduced in 2004 (“Exploration”) (the name “Shiyang” was also given, but this is a generic Chinese name for a test satellite). The first was launched on 18th April 2004 into polar orbit. This was the first time that there was a northward polar launch from Xi Chang, for hitherto all launches had been southward and, for the first time, a Long March 2C was used from Xi Chang. Its orbit was 600-615 km, 97.6°. The Tansuo series was essentially a set of pre­operational test missions to define a more permanent Earth resources and mapping system. Tansuo was a 204-kg high-resolution stereo imaging and mapping satellite built at the University of Technology in Harbin and the Photomechanical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the European company Astrium. It was China’s first terrain-mapping satellite, with a 10-m stereo-resolution camera with a 120-km swath.

Tansuo also deployed a 25-kg micro-satellite called Naxing, short for “Nami Weixing” or “micro-satellite”, and derived from the earlier small satellite Tsinghua 1 flown by Russia. Naxing was built by the University in Tsinghua as hands-on learning for engineers to develop microtechnology. China television showed pictures of the six-sided cylinder being ejected from Tansuo against the background of the Earth. Tansuo 2 was also launched on Long March 2C from Xi Chang on 18th November 2004 into a slightly lower orbit. Weighing 300 kg, it was announced as a mission to test new technologies for the surveying of land, resources, and geography, with six new systems for control, power, and orientation. Hereon, the series returned to the Jiuquan launch base.

Tansuo 3 was launched on 5th November 2008 and also deployed another mini­satellite, the second Chuangxin (see below). It went into a much higher orbit, 800 km high. Tansuo 3 was built by Harbin Institute of Technology, a 204-kg Earth

observation satellite with a CCD camera, while Chuangxin 1-02 was a small 88-kg store-dump satellite built by SAST which collected information on weather, hydrology, and natural disasters from remote stations. Results from the double mission were published in September 2011 by the National Commission for Disaster Reduction. According to the commission, the optical, infrared, and hyper-spectral sensors had provided rapid imaging data that helped rescue teams in no fewer than 70 natural disasters, notably the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Tansuo 4 was again a double mission with Chuangxin 1-03 and also flew at 800 km. Tansuo 4 was built by the Harbin Institute again, but this time with the DFH SatelUte Co., and it may have been the larger CAST968 bus with a weight in the order of 400 kg.

We have few further details on these missions, or published images, but we do now have information on the current suite of Earth resources, environmental, and observational instruments from a description of the Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity, originally institute 508 formed on 21st August 1958:

• Light and Small Infrared Area Camera, 8 kg, focal length 285 mm, used for monitoring fires, volcanoes, disasters, and the contours of deserts, with a resolution of 100 m;

• Wide Coverage Multi Spectral Imager for Ocean Monitoring, 18 kg, focal length 32 mm, swath 500 km, resolution 250 m from 798 km with four lens for acquiring data on ice, spills, and red tide;

• Wide Cover Multi Spectral Camera for Environment Monitoring, 34 kg, focal length 141 mm, resolution 30 m from 650 km, swath 700 km with two cameras;

• Large Area Staring Multi Spectral Camera, 130 kg, focal length 2 m, resolution 100 m from 24-hr orbit;

• Light Wide Coverage Scanner, 40 kg, focal length 1.3 m, swath 380 km, resolution 10 m from 1,300 km, for leakage detection, silting, riverbed pollution, and terrain observation;

• Push-broom Hyper-spectral Camera, 60 kg, focal length 41 mm, resolution 250 m from 800 km, with large field of view of agriculture, forestry, oceans, water, minerals, and environmental observations.

The first of a new type of satellite was launched on 24th August 2010: Tianhui, or mapping satellite, a CZ-2D used from Jiuquan in an orbit of 488-504 km, 94.5 min, 97.3°. The second carried a mapping camera with 5-m resolution and entered a similar orbit less than two years later. Both were crossing the equator at a similar time, 13:30 local time. It is possible that this new series benefitted from the earlier work undertaken by Tansuo and is an operational version, but the more powerful launcher suggests a heavier satellite. Outcomes do not yet appear to have been publicized. The series are summarized in Tables 6.6 and 6.7.

Even though project 714 was one of the more successful secrets of the period, rumors of Chinese plans for manned spaceflight surfaced repeatedly during the 1980s. Pictures of spacesuited astronauts appeared from time to time, in isolation chambers, simulators, centrifuges, and observatories, almost certainly at the Institute of Space Medicine (there was even a profile in the domestic press, on 10th—11th January 1980, for example). It was a story that just never seemed to go away. We now know that a group of 12 men was recruited in April 1979. They were never formally constituted as an astronaut squad, even though they studied the stars, tested isolation and pressure chambers, underwent all the difficult physical tests such as the orientation chair, tested negative body pressure suits, tasted space food, made drop tests, and may even have undertaken simulated space missions.

In 1992, the Hong Kong press reported that plans for a manned spaceflight were now under way. Considered at the time as just another rumor, this story was actually true, for the government made such a decision that year, as confirmed by its code name, project 921, derived either from the first decision of “92”, 1992, or else 21st September of that year (the 21st of the ninth month). The decision arose from two feasibility studies carried out under the project 863 research program (for background to the program, see Chapter 5). In February 1987, an expert group, 863-2, was set up

Name Design bureau Features

Source: Lan, Chen: Dragon in Space: A History of China’s Shenzhou Manned Space Program. Spaceflight, 47(4) (2005); Wade, M. Tian Jiao 1, available online at www. astronautix. com.

to establish long-range goals for the space sector. It determined that having a space station in Earth orbit was the hallmark of a great power in the twenty-first century, signifying national strength and international visibility. Plan 863-2 led to two sub­studies: 863-204 was for a new manned spacecraft and launcher, while 863-205 was for a manned space station [1]. The competition was run by the Ministry of Aerospace, which gave it an additional title: project 869. Six designs were presented in June 1988 and these are detailed in Table 8.2.

In the event, the China Academy of Launcher Technology (CALT) shuttle design, the Tian Jiao, was rated first (84%), followed closely (83%) by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) design. The proposals went to a conference in Harbin in July 1988 where the debate revolved between a conservative design (CAST) and a leapfrogging design (CALT), but one with higher design risk and a later date. An expert group took a year to reach a final decision, reversing the original recommendation in favor of CAST. At the time, we knew nothing of this great competition, although relics of it were in fact hiding in plain view. The aerospace – plane design was displayed at the 1990 International Astronautical Congress and may still be seen in the company office. Tian Jiao, meantime, was exhibited at the Hanover, Germany Expo 2000.

The proposal entered a three-year period of great uncertainty, being alternately on and off while technical, economic, and political issues were argued out in party and government, eventually forcing Deng Xiaoping out of retirement to prevail on his colleagues and especially reluctant premier Li Peng to make a decision. As an

interim step, there were further studies to refine outstanding issues and an exchange program with Russia, whereby 20 young engineers went there, while the Russians sent expert lecturers in exchange. The technical studies focused on deciding between three possible versions of the CAST design:

• a three-module configuration, with the re-entry module on top and the orbital module in the middle;

• a two-module configuration, with no orbital module (like the Soviet Zond spacecraft);

• a version close to the Russian Soyuz, but with a larger orbital module capable of 180 days’ independent flight, originally proposed by Ren Zinmin in 1987. This was the choice.

Although the politburo eventually made its decision on 21st September 1992, it was not confirmed or publicly announced until the end of the decade. The original plan foresaw an unmanned launch by 1998, manned launch by 2002, a small space station by 2007, and a Mir-class station by 2010. Put in charge of project 921 was a disciple of the Soviet chief designer (1966-74) Vasili Mishin: Wang Yongzhi. A special Human Spaceflight Project Office was established to manage the program, reporting back directly to the state council. The name “Shenzhou”, or “divine heavenly vessel”, was applied to the project in 1994. Key tasks were assigned to different bureaus. Although led by CAST, the Shenzhou propulsion system went to SAST (Table 8.3).

Shenzhou: Qi Faren

Launcher, CZ-2F: Liu Zhusheng

New launch complex at Jiuquan: Xu Kejun

Recovery: Zhao Jun

Tracking system: Yu Zhijian

Astronaut training: Shu Shuangning

Payloads, applications: Gu Yidong

Evidence of an emerging Chinese manned space project became ever more compelling when, in 1996, two Chinese cosmonaut instructors were spotted in Star Town in Moscow: Wu Tse and Li Tsinlong, both 34-year-old Air Force pilots with over 1,000 hr flying. Although Star Town had now become very cosmopolitan, with many Europeans and Americans in training there, there was only one reason why Wu Tse and Li Tsinlong could have been there: they were cosmonaut instructors in training.

In fact, China had renewed its relationship with its long-estranged partners in Moscow in early 1993 and a formal cooperation agreement had been signed there on 25th March 1994. The following year, the Chinese went shopping, deciding to buy critical elements for their manned space program. They bought an entire spacecraft Ufe-support system, a Sokol spacesuit, a docking module, a Kurs rendezvous system,

and a full Soyuz capsule, but it was a stripped-down shell, without any equipment or electronics (the Chinese had hoped to buy a complete Soyuz, but negotiators would not agree a price). Thermal protection systems were tested in Russian wind tunnels. The Chinese baulked at the €8m price of the stabilizer for the launch escape system and built their own in the end.

The two cosmonaut instructors spent a year in Star Town, learning how they could train a squad of their own, assisted by 20 specialists. As they did so, recruitment began for China’s second astronaut squad in 1996. As was the case before, Air Force pilots were favored, with a preference for over 1,000 flying hours, with an initial pool of between 1,000 and 1,500 people, reduced to 60, then 20, and finally whittled down to a final selection of 12 in 1998, with the two instructors later added, giving a second squad of 14 men (no women). The criteria were for height up to 175 cm, weight up to 80 kg, age 20-45 (but 25-36 preferred), a university degree in science, and a foreign language. Table 8.4 shows those who were selected.

Table 8.4. China’s second group of astronauts, 1996.

Zhao Chuandong Chen Quan Pan Zhanchun Zhang Xiaoguang Deng Qingming

Wu Tse (also written Wu Jie) (instructor)

Li Tsinlong (also written Li Qinglong) (instructor)

Although they did most of their training in China, they did travel to Russia for weightless training in the 11-76 plane. One outstanding question remained: what to call China’s spacemen? The original term for someone who flew in space, from the 1930s to the early 1960s, was “astronaut” (someone who traveled to the stars). On the first anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, in 1962, the Soviet Union introduced a term devised by writer by Ari Stemfeld – “cosmonaut” (someone who traveled throughout the cosmos) – as a distinctive term for its fliers. The most popular term used in China, dating to the 1950s, was “yuhangyuan” – the official term and the one used in this book. Several others have also been used, including “hangtianyuan”, a professional or academic term, and “taikongren”, the term most familiar to overseas Chinese and people in Hong Kong and Taiwan. An anglicized version of “taikongren” is “taikonaut”, which has the merit of symmetry with “cosmonaut” and “astronaut”. This was favored by the Western media and even gained ground in China itself.

The manned space program decided on in 1992 meant a huge expansion of the infrastructure of the Chinese space program – indeed, its most systematic develop­ment since it began. The first need was for a training center, set up as a walled village in Haidian, a secluded area protected by military guards in the north-western suburbs of Beijing, whose function was comparable to Star Town and the American facilities in Houston [2]. It was built on the site of the original training center in 1970
and was not that different in layout from Star Town in Moscow. The main elements were a Shenzhou simulator, docking simulator, launch escape slide, and centrifuge 8 m long, able to run at 42 rpm and achieve 16 G (although 6 G is the normal run). A typical training period to qualification was four years. The training center had a spinning chair which whirled people up and down, left and right, around and around, in dizzying combinations, and an isolation, thermal, and vacuum chamber from which the air was sucked out and where astronauts learned to live in an air-free environment for several days, testing their psychological fitness to the limit and subjecting them to a range of temperature and humidity regimes. For gravity tests, the astronauts were put in a cylindrical tower 10 m tall and then shot up at great speed, to simulate the stresses of launching. To test the other end of the mission, they were dropped in a fast lift in a four-storey-high building. There was plenty of theory to learn, too. When they arrived, the yuhangyuan were handed a 600-page manual, Manned Spaceflight Engineering, covering everything from flight dynamics to cosmic rays and navigation systems.

The astronauts trained there five days a week. They returned home to their families each weekend. They had ordinary apartments to the standards of a cadre division commander. During the week, they had their own transport and police escort for visits outside the training center but, at the weekend, they were expected to get around like anyone else by bicycle or car. As was the case with many in the Russian cosmonaut squad, most of their wives also worked in the training center or in the space industry.

At the same time, a mission control center was built in Yenshan (Swallow Mountain) district, 40 km north of Beijing’s center, not far from one of the emperor’s summer palaces. Called the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Centre (BACCC), it opened in March 1996. BACCC has five walls of consoles, 100 in all, connected by fiber optic cables, with a huge wall-to-wall screen at the front, with clocks, images of the worldwide tracking system, and television relays from the launch center, its gleaming and futuristic appearance confirmed by up to four presentations of three-dimensional displays at the front. Its appearance was not unlike that of mission control in Moscow, the TsUP, used to control the International Space Station (ISS). In between missions, the controllers spend time honing their skills in simulations. When they are not doing this, the screen puts up a graphic of a Long March taking off against a background of pagodas and distant mountains. Computers and high-speed links connect BACCC to China’s national ground control system in Xian and the Yuan Wang comships. Mission control handles not just manned, but lunar and interplanetary, missions.

In the meantime, China went to Mars – but on the ground. This was a 520-day-long ground experiment conducted by Russia, which had a long history of simulating long-duration missions going back to 1968, when three men made a year-long “spaceflight”. These tests were important for addressing life-support, ergonomic, medical, biological, and psychological issues long ahead of the real thing. In the early 2000s, Russia announced its intention of simulating a full-duration Mars mission in its Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) in Moscow, using its simulation module called “the box” (“botchka” in Russian), a habitat of 550 m3. It would be as lifelike as possible, with a simulated landing on Mars for half the crew (while the other half orbited above) with a Mars walk and even a 40-min delay in transmission times to match the real delay at such a distance. Although these simulations were ridiculed in the British press (“Why don’t they simulate the Olympics too?”), they had a serious purpose in laying the groundwork for the definitive mission many decades later.

Originally, it was a Russian-European project. There were lengthy delays in getting it started, probably due to lack of money on the Russian side, to the point that a 105-day simulation was run instead from March to July 2009 with four Russians, a German, and a Frenchman. At one stage, it seemed that Mars 105 might be an abbreviated conclusion to the project but, suddenly, in April 2010, the Russian-European Mars 500 project was on again – but this time with a Chinese crewman, Dr Wang Yue, aged 27. He was a graduate of Nanjing Medical College in preventative medicine (in 2005) and went straight from there to the astronaut training center to work as a physiologist, being closely involved in the Shenzhou 7 space walk and the selection of China’s third group of astronauts. It was an all-male group (Russia seemed to have a problem including women in these tests) of four Russians, two Europeans (France and Italy), and a Chinaman. There is reason to believe that China was able to pay sufficient money for its participation to make the mission economical for the IMBP, which may have explained its sudden restart.

The mission began at 11:49 European time on 3rd June 2010, with the door of the bochka being ceremonially shut. Key simulated moments of a Mars mission followed, such as a mid-course correction on 24th December and entry to Mars orbit on 2nd February 2011 after 244 days. Forty days into the mission, communications were interrupted because of a solar storm. Later, there was a power cut – all part of a process of testing the men’s self-reliance. The high point of the experiment was when a sub-crew of three – Alexander Smolevsky, Diego Urbina, and Wang Yue – made a simulated landing on Mars on 12th February. For this, they transferred to a separate landing module measuring 6.3 x 6.17 m – their sole home for 16 days. Getting out on the surface, they made three space walks using real Russian Orlan spacesuits, each led by the Russian, with Wang Yue’s big moment taking place on 18th February. The cosmonauts traversed a simulated Martian terrain of 10 x 6m – actually part of the car park at the back – modeled on Gusev crater, where they collected samples, drove a rover, and planted the Russian, European, and Chinese flags. At night, Wang Yue slept in a 35-kg spacesuit at an angle with his head down to simulate the gravity of Mars after a long period of weightless, feeling the blood rush to his head. Then they left Mars on 23rd February, docked in Mars orbit four days later, and headed out Earthward on 1st March.

During the mission out to Mars and the long, monotonous journey home, Wang Yue provided daily blood and urine samples. He had his own 3-m2 cabin, where he hung a picture of Yang Liwei. The cosmonauts exercised regularly. Much of the day was spent on experiments, maintenance, and cleaning, as on a real spaceship. The

experiment he most disliked was an attention-level test in which he had to use a cursor to move 16 randomly swirling dots into a bubble. They could bring a small number of personal items on board, such as books, videos, and laptops. They spent a lot of time e-mailing friends, Wang Yue writing to his girlfriend but complaining that she did not write enough back. He spoke later of how his mood would fluctuate, at times becoming depressed and angry. For recreation, the crew watched videos, generally comedies and cartoons. Once they watched the film Apollo 13, but it left them depressed for days. The working languages of the mission were Russian and English, but Wang Yue initiated a course in basic Chinese for his colleagues. In an internet broadcast from the botchka on cosmonautics day, 12th April (the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight), Wang Yue spoke in excellent English about how much Gagarin had been an inspiration to him.

The doors of the botchka did not swing open again until November, when, in an event televised across Europe, the crewmembers emerged in their blue coveralls and bhnked in the natural Ught and the camera flashes of the hundreds of friends, family, and well-wishers who gathered to welcome them back to the real world.

Later, speaking of the mission, Wang Yue told viewers that the experiment had proved harder than he expected, but he had never thought of giving up and had received good support from family and friends. Readjustment after the mission was a challenge. He had difficulty sleeping and found everyday life very noisy after the quiet of the botchka. Director of the astronaut training center in Beijing, Chen

Shanguang, described his contribution to a future Mars mission as heroic, while IMBP deputy director and cosmonaut Boris Morukov commended his teamwork and determination. Wang Yue told of how he had spent his time off in reading, board games, and calligraphy, and had followed closely the rescue of the Chilean miners who had been trapped underground. Asked what he missed most, Wang Yue was very clear: home Chinese cooking. The food – which was similar to that on the International Space Station – was not enjoyable, he said, but it kept him from starving and gave him some energy. He had spent two birthdays on the Mars flight and was 29 when he returned. He volunteered that he was prepared to do the experiment again – “but not right yet”. A mission highlight was taking a shower every 10 days (so limited so as to conserve water). He went on a well-deserved holiday in Kunming, Yunan, and managed to put back on some of the 5-kg weight he had lost during the mission.

The mission was followed by a team of ESA psychologists led by Bernadette van Barsen of the Netherlands. Initial results showed that the crew had stood up well to the early part of the mission, but with morale dipping several months in but then recovering when the Mars landing approached. In a post-conference presentation of the results, the head of IMBP Anatoli Grigoriev spoke of the importance of the experiment in identifying the psycho-physiological stress points of a mission to Mars, such as decreased motor activity (hypokinesia), monotony, and frustration, as well as risks of cardiac arrhythmia and the demineralization of bones and tissue. Although this part of the mission was not simulated, experts were already alert to the problem of cancers from prolonged exposure to solar radiation – one which suggested that older astronauts should fly, for they would spread more slowly. Granted that astronauts were now flying in their fifties (John Glenn had famously flown at 77), Wang Yue could, even in 30 years’ time, be of a suitable age for such a mission. Would Wang Yue be the first Chinese man on Mars? Or would he follow down the ladder Liu Yang, the first Chinese woman?

CONCLUSIONS: TO THE MOON AND MARS

The lunar program was, like others, a beneficiary of project 863 (see Chapter 4), which enabled pre-studies to be undertaken of a lunar mission. Indeed, Deng Xiaoping’s wisdom in approving a horizontal science program as far back as 1986 became more apparent, for it made it possible for scientific objectives to reassert themselves within the space program and permitted ground work to be done thoroughly before a government decision (in 2003). It is possible that the success of the early Shenzhou missions gave China the final confidence necessary to proceed with a lunar mission, leading to the first launching to the Moon, Chang e, in 2007, followed by a second mission in 2010, Chang e 2. China was able to keep its costs down by using spacecraft originally developed for other missions, such as the DFH-3, and by adapting instrumentation from Earth resources satelhtes. The trajectories followed for both lunar missions were difficult and ambitious, for both Chang e’s elliptical trajectory to the Moon and Chang e 2’s subsequent move to L2 required considerable precision, navigation, computer power, and tracking. Their missions were carried out with apparently effortless ease – evidence of rapidly rising standards within the program and the thoroughness of preparatory work. The product of Chang e was a substantial body of indigenous scientific knowledge, giving China new, precise topographic and chemical lunar maps, with the identification of fresh lunar features and a new understanding of the regolith. They gave China a place in the international scientific community analyzing the Moon – a promising background for the rover and sample return missions to follow. Although the opportunistic but clever Yinghuo mission came to nothing, plans were already in preparation for missions to Mars from 2015. Preparatory work was even undertaken for a later manned mission to Mars, the Mars 500, over 2010-11. The years 2007-12 clearly marked a fresh dimension to China’s space program: its arrival in the field of missions to deep space.