Updates Shenzhou 10 mission updates, June 11-26, 2013

[N_Molson]

Solar panels deployed ! Another manned mission and 3 more humans in orbit ! :thumbup:

 

[Codz]

That's certainly always a good thing.

 

[rodion_herrera]

hahaha, the review has some hollywoodesque music in the background playing...funny

-RODION

 

[N_Molson]

Hehe the manned space program chief has almost as much medals as a soviet general

 

[rodion_herrera]

Yang Liwei is now a general! :thumbup: Did they promote Gagarin too, after his flight?

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Hehe the manned space program chief has almost as much medals as a soviet general

Ah I think he's also a general (heck commander Nie Haisheng is now a Major General too!), so that's not surprising.

Good job by the Chinese! With this mission their manned spaceflights are now becoming a normal phenomenon, instead of being "just" "stunt flights". :thumbup:

 

[N_Molson]

I just learned that in China, Tuesday was like Sunday in the West, so people were able to massively watch the launch.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

I just learned that in China, Tuesday was like Sunday in the West, so people were able to massively watch the launch.

Erm, not quite. [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duanwu_Festival"]However tomorrow is a public holiday[/ame] (I think so, at least that's the case in Hong Kong), so many people are flying in to Jiuquan for the launch. :tiphat:

 

[rodion_herrera]

Launch replay

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

The whole launch from T-1 minute to spacecraft solar arrays deployment.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Launch photos

 

[sorindafabico]

The Shenzhou seems to have more room than the Soyuz.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

The Shenzhou seems to have more room than the Soyuz.

That's correct - the Soyuz RM has a max. diameter of 2.17 m and a habitable volume of 3.5 m^3; on the Shenzhou RM the values are 2.52 m and 6 m^3. One can say that Shenzhou is an upgraded and improved slightly larger Chinese version of the Soyuz.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Not much news right now (except that the crew is enjoying the food they have :thumbup as the spacecraft continues to fly around the Earth. Docking with Tiangong 1 should happen at around 05:00 UTC tomorrow, although apparently the Chinese TV stations aren't bothered to cover it live!

In the meantime, enjoy:

 

[MattBaker]

A question that isn't directly connected to the mission but to the future of the Chinese Space Program:

Now this is apparently the last mission to Tiangong 1 and the next step is launching a bigger version, Tiangong 2 which is like 20 metric tons heavy.

Now the thing I'm wondering about: How are they going to launch that one? It would take the new Long March 5 which isn't expected to launch this year and in my opinion probably not in 2014 either.
So yeah, how do they get this thing into orbit?

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

A question that isn't directly connected to the mission but to the future of the Chinese Space Program:

Now this is apparently the last mission to Tiangong 1 and the next step is launching a bigger version, Tiangong 2 which is like 20 metric tons heavy.

Now the thing I'm wondering about: How are they going to launch that one? It would take the new Long March 5 which isn't expected to launch this year and in my opinion probably not in 2014 either.
So yeah, how do they get this thing into orbit?

I don't think Tiangong 2 will be that big - while its design is still not known with certainty (it will probably be somewhere around 13-15 tonnes and has two docking ports, something like a scaled down Salyut 6/7), latest news seems to point to it being launched in 2015 (probably on the CZ-7, which should fly by late 2014-early 2015). Then several crew missions and logistics flights with the future Chinese cargo supply spacecraft (which will be a modified TG-1) will fly to there over the next few years.

It seems that the earliest time the core module of the future Chinese space station can be launched is in 2018.

 

[MattBaker]

So wait, that's the last Chinese manned launch for the next two years?
I was just getting used to manned missions every few months.:lol:

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

It was a completely no fanfare act - so much that the Chinese went back to the old Soviet style and offered no public announcements of any kind covering the rendezvous and docking dry: :thumbsdown - but Shenzhou 10 had a flawless docking with Tiangong 1 earlier today. :thumbup: Contact was made at 05:11 UTC and hard dock was achieved at 05:18 UTC. Three hours later the three astronauts entered the small space outpost at 08:17 UTC.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Remember those bouncy floor panels on TG-1? The astronauts have replaced them with sturdier honeycomb paper panels brought along on SZ-10:

 

[RGClark]

Remember those bouncy floor panels on TG-1? The astronauts have replaced them with sturdier honeycomb paper panels brought along on SZ-10:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MJb0C6lU94

Thanks for that. Nice shots of the interior of the space station.

Bob Clark