The 2024 China Worldwide Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition was held in Zhuhai final week – from November twelfth to seventeenth, 2024. Since 1996, and with assist from the Chinese language aerospace business, this biennial pageant options precise merchandise, commerce talks, technological exchanges, and an air present. This 12 months’s large spotlight was China’s newly introduced reusable area cargo shuttle, the Haolong (Chinese language for “dragon”). In accordance with chief designer Fang Yuanpeng, the spacecraft has entered the engineering part and shall be prepared for area within the close to future.
The Haolong shuttle is being developed by the Chengdu Plane Design and Analysis Institute, which has developed a number of Chinese language fighter jets previously. It has a big wingspan, measuring eight meters (26.25 ft) in width and about 10 meters (33 ft) lengthy, with a excessive lift-to-drag ratio. From the picture supplied (above), the design is clearly impressed by the now-retired Area Shuttle and options the identical sort of payload bay with two bay doorways. Whereas the cargo shuttle has a comparable wingspan (8.7 m; 29 ft), it’s considerably shorter than the Area Shuttle, which measured 56.1 m (184 ft) in size.
This makes the Haolong (when it comes to measurement) extra akin to the X-37B and China’s Shenlong spaceplane. Like these spaceplanes, the Haolong spacecraft shall be autonomous and have cutting-edge aviation applied sciences. The design was certainly one of a number of ideas issued in response to a solicitation by the China Manned Area Company (CMSA) for low-cost and industrial cargo spacecraft. These will present logistical assist for China’s Tiangong area station because it undergoes enlargement within the coming years.
In accordance with the state-owned information company Xinhua, the winners of the solicitation had been introduced on October twenty ninth. This included the CMSA’s Haolong shuttle and the Qingzhou spacecraft, an built-in cargo capsule submitted by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese language Academy of Sciences (IAMCAS). In accordance with Lin Xiqiang, the deputy director of the CMSA, each corporations gained contracts for the flight verification part of their proposals. In accordance with Fang, the area shuttle Haolong will launch into orbit through a industrial provider rocket, make atmospheric reentry, and land horizontally on a runway.
As soon as it reaches orbit, it would unfold its photo voltaic panels and open its docking protect. The shuttle’s rear will dock with Tiangong, the place taikonauts can entry the cargo bay and switch the payload to the area station. In accordance with Fang, “the Hoalong can obtain upkeep much like an plane after touchdown, so it might probably conduct one other mission.” The spacecraft has already accomplished the design part and is shifting into engineering improvement. Fang indicated that this part is nicely underway and shall be adopted by the cargo mission part. “I imagine that the general public will see it quickly,” he stated.
In the meantime, the Qingzhou cargo spacecraft has a cargo quantity of as much as 27 cubic meters, which is predicted to offer logistics flexibility and considerably cut back transportation prices. In accordance with Xinhua, Qingzhou additionally has an clever transportation system able to supporting crewed and uncrewed in-orbit experiments. The cargo spacecraft is scheduled to be launched by the Lijian-2, a reusable rocket at the moment underneath improvement by CAS Area. This rocket is certainly one of a number of reusable medium-lift launch autos China plans to debut within the coming years.
Lin additionally famous that “this strategic transfer won’t solely slash cargo transportation prices for the area station but additionally pave the way in which for brand spanking new alternatives within the development of the nation’s industrial area business.” In accordance with market analysis, China’s industrial area business is predicted to succeed in a market worth of 2.34 trillion yuan ($323.35 billion) by the top of 2024.
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