The founder of modern astronautics, chiolkovski, once said: “the earth is the cradle of mankind, but human beings cannot be bound to it forever”
If the spacecraft is the “scrambling vehicle” from which humans climb out of the earth's cradle, then the station is the first “bridgehead” for human exploration of space, and the cargo ship is the supply line connecting the earth's base to the space fort。
The cargo ship has three main tasks: first, to supplement the station with propellants, to replace and maintain equipment and to extend the space station's orbital flight life; second, to transport astronauts for work and life supplies, to secure the on-orbit presence and work of astronauts; and third, to transport scientific laboratory equipment to support and safeguard space stations for space science experiments。
During the cold war, the united states and the soviet union dominated space, and in near-earth orbit the two countries had planned the construction of cannons 1-7, the sky laboratory, and more than 10 space stations, such as the cosmos, peace and international, but only the international space station, with no branch shop, currently operated in orbit。
The international space station was built for 13 years, from the launch of the sunset module in 1998 to the completion of the final component launch assembly by the end of 2011。
The completed iss is 110 metres long and 88 metres wide, approximately the size of a football field, with a total mass of over 400 tons, which allows six to seven astronauts to work in orbit at the same time and to operate in an orbit about 400 kilometres above the surface, the first bridgehead for mankind to escape the earth and explore the universe。
The international space station was built by six space agencies, russian, american and other, and 16 countries。
Six space agencies are the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa), the russian federation space agency (roscosmos), esa, jaxa, the canadian space agency (csa) and the brazilian space agency (aeb)。
Of these, 11 countries, including belgium, denmark, france, germany, italy, norway, the netherlands, spain, sweden, switzerland and the united kingdom, are participating in the iss programme。
It can be said that the international space station is the first large-scale human quest to explore spaceInternational cooperationI don't know. However, since china had applied to participate in the construction of the space station at the beginning of its project, and the government of the united states had been strongly opposed to it, china had been able to build its sky palace space laboratory and future space station only outside the united states-led space club。
While china's space system has gone through difficult times and developed into today's situation, nasa has said — “china has always been closed to international cooperation in space, and has refused to participate in international cooperation in space. You see, their ship interfaces and the international space station are not universal” — and we can only do so。
Delivery mode: cargo ship
Since the decommissioning of the united states space shuttle in 2011, only the russian spaceship soyuz, which is capable of providing shuttle services to and from the international space station, has received approximately $70 million per ship, with no discounts, only round-trip tickets and no one-way tickets。
The space station can be serviced by transport of cargo, with five models, namely, the russian spaceship progress, the united states space exploration technology company dragon, the orbital science company swans, the esa automatic transfer vehicle, and the japanese pelican。
Initially, the united states and the russian federation supplied the station with manned spacecraft in human cargo, each with a capacity of only several hundred kilograms, which seriously affected and constrained the operation of the station。
At the end of the 1970s, soviet scientists converted the soyuz manned spacecraft, removing the manned systems of the ship's seat, ring-control, return to land and emergency attendants, in order to transport more cargo, and the modified spacecraft was named progress。
Spaceship progress
On 20 january 1978, the first cargo vessel, progress, was launched and flew to the space station no. 6 as a gift, sending thousands of kilograms of cargo. Since then, the cargo vessel progress has gradually increased its capacity to approximately 2. 6 tons as a result of several modifications. After the ship has delivered its cargo, it can also bring the garbage from the station back to earth and burn it naturally in the atmosphere。
To date, progress has developed for two generations: 42 in the progress series and 21 in the progress m series。
In recent years, the progress ship has suffered five launch failures, and on 1 december 2016 the progress ms04 ship lost contact with the ground after 383 seconds of flight and eventually crashed。
On 22 february this year, at the baikonur space centre in kazakhstan, russia launched the progress ms-05 cargo ship using a “soyuz-u” carrier rocket, carrying about 2. 5 tons of cargo to the international space station. According to russian federal space agency experts, this will be the last launcher of the soyuz-u launch vehicle。
Dragon ship
In order to change the passivity of the international space station (iss) transport from and to the world, which was entirely dependent on russia, the united states government had decided to encourage private enterprise to participate in space technology projects, despite difficulties in obtaining congressional funding。
Mask's space exploration technology company is one of nasa's lucky ones。
At the white house's behest, nasa entered into a $1. 6 billion contract with space exploration technologies, which provided technical support and services to the company, and the dragon ship would conduct at least 12 unmanned missions for nasa and deliver supplies to the station。
The dragon ship is 5. 9 metres long, has a maximum diameter of 3. 6 metres and weighs 4. 2 tons. Its transport load is 6 tons maximum mass, 3 tons maximum mass return, and is recovered by a drop on the parachute。
After two launch failures, on 22 may 2012, space exploration technologies developed and produced the falcon 9 rocket, which successfully placed the dragon ship into its scheduled orbit, and three days later successfully docked with the international space station, making it the first commercial spaceship ever to visit the station。
The dragon ship is currently the only cargo vessel capable of transporting cargo back to earth, and the dragon ship has thermal shields and can land safely at very high temperatures upon return, while other ships can only burn when re-entry into the atmosphere. At present, space exploration technologies is developing a second generation of manned dragons with up to seven astronauts on board the international space station。
The swan ship
The united states orbital science corporation competes with the space exploration technologies commercial company for iss transport projects. The company developed a swan vessel with a maximum diameter of 3. 07 metres, weighing approximately 2 tons, carrying a maximum payload of 2. 7 tons and returning a maximum payload of 1. 2 tons。
Following the success of the pilot flight in september 2013, two commercial iss supply service missions were completed in 2014。
On 28 october 2014, when the swan ship performed its third mission, the swan rocket exploded six seconds after it was launched, destroying the ship and the cargo。
On 6 december 2015, after three delays in launching the new generation of swan spaceships, 3. 5 tons of supplies and instruments were finally sent to the international space station, saving six astronauts who were desperate for life。
On 17 october 2016, the swan ship again delivered 2. 3 tons of material to the international space station。
4. Automatic transfer vehicles
The automatic transfer vehicle developed by esa is the most capable cargo ship ever carried. The ship is approximately 10. 3 metres long, has a maximum diameter of 4. 5 metres and weighs about 19. 36 tons, with a cargo capacity of 8 tons
The automatic transfer vehicle has four types of applications: to deliver supplies to the space station; to be used as an additional activity room for the station after the cargo has been unloaded; to upgrade the orbit of the international space station; and to be used as a dumpster to bring back to earth 6. 5 tons of waste material from the space station. In addition, because of the low noise of the ventilation fan and air conditioning equipment of the “automatic transfer” vehicle, the crew of the station often sleeps in the pressurized module, where they can also maintain personal hygiene with daily wet towels and shampoo。
From 2008 to 2014, the last launch, esa launched a total of five atms. It is planned that automatic transfer vehicles will not be launched in the future。
The european space agency announced that it would develop re-entry ships and manned spacecraft that could transport goods back to earth on the basis of automatic transfer vehicles。
A pelican ship
The pelican spacecraft was developed by the japan aerospace exploration agency (jaxa) with a total length of about 10 metres and a maximum diameter of about 4. 4 metres, capable of carrying about 6 tons of cargo, with a maximum launch mass of 16. 5 tons。
The cylindrical spacecraft is large and the interface with the station is widened to approximately 1. 2 metres to carry large devices that other cargo ships cannot carry. A modular design, divided into pressure and non-pressure holds capable of carrying both inside and outside the space station, is the only option for non-pressure cargo transport on iss。
In 2009, the first cylindrium spacecraft (htv-1) was launched at tanegashima, and as of 19 august 2015, japan had successfully placed five cylindrium ships in scheduled orbit, sending a total of 5. 5 tons of supplies to the international space station, such as drinking water, food, daily supplies and laboratory equipment。
On 9 december 2016, the sixth cylindrical ship (htv-6) was launched at tanegashima, where it was planned to carry out a space garbage clean-up experiment using a tens of metres-long electromagnetic hook, which was unsuccessful and burned in the atmosphere as it returned to earth。
Sky ark express, sky palace package
On 15 september last year, the sky palace ii space laboratory was launched at the liquor spring satellite launch centre and has so far flown over 210 days in space。
During this period, the astronauts sea peng, chen dong, and skyboat 11 made automatic contact with tianmong ii and worked for more than 30 days。
We're about to launchSkyboat oneThe cargo ship will be connected to sky palace ii automatically, will transport some of the equipment required for the space laboratory and will conduct on-orbit re-engineering tests for propellants。
These test elements will also provide the technical basis for the next construction of china's own space station — since the iss has closed its doors to china, we have to build our own palace。
Based on officially published information, skyboat i is a fully closed structure, using cargo compartments, two-barrel configurations of 10. 6 metres long and a maximum diameter of 3. 35 metres, take-off mass of approximately 13 tons, solar sail plates with a maximum width of 14. 9 metres, material transport capacity of about 6. 5 tons, propellant supplement capacity of approximately 2 tons and an independent flight capability of three months。
Media reports say that skyboat i's launch window is from 20 to 24th of this month. If everything goes well, tomorrow you'll see the spectacular flight of the ship from the south china sea to space. Let's wish the launch every success
Finally, back to the question raised at the beginning of this paper, what's the difference between east wind express and sky boat express, which is to be reduced to a single sentence -
The east wind express delivers a nuclear bomb, and the sky ark delivers peace。
It is our sincere hope that there will be less nuclear bombs and more peace in this world。
