China in a big advancement in satellite technology

What an advancement in satelite technology.

There is a heavy move in Chinese satellite technology to
the next level with. Here is a programme to
develop a new range of air-launched
delivery rockets.
China will develop a new generation
of rockets launched from aircraft
that can put satellites into space,
said Li Tongyu, the head of carrier
rocket development at the China
Academy of Launch Vehicle
Technology. Air-launched rockets can
rapidly replace dysfunctional satellites
or, in cases of disaster relief, quickly
send up Earth observation satellites to
assist in the effort, Mr Li said.


Work has immensely commenced by the Designers at the academy, which is the
main developer of Chinese carrier
rockets, they have designed a model capable
of sending a payload of about 220
pounds into low Earth orbit and are
ready to produce one if the
government asks, he said. They plan to
design a larger rocket that could carry
440 pounds into orbit.
on the other hand, “The Y-20 strategic transport plane will
be the carrier of these rockets,” Mr Li
said. “The jet will hold a rocket within
its fuselage and release it at a certain
altitude. The rocket will be ignited after
it leaves the plane.”
Large satellites will still have to be put
into orbit with conventional rockets,
experts said.

The Y-20 JET for launching the satellite at certain altitude.

Delivery of the Y-20 to the Chinese Air
Force began in July. It is China’s first
domestically developed heavy-lift
transport plane and has a maximum
takeoff weight of more than 200 tons
and a maximum payload of about 66
tons, aviation experts said.
Solid-fuel rockets can be launched
from planes much faster than land-
based, liquid-fuelled rockets, where
preparation can take days, weeks or
longer, in part because it takes so
much time to pump in the fuel, experts
said.
Each mission involving a solid-fuel
rocket launched by a Y-20 would take
only 12 hours of preparation to place a
440 pound satellite into a sun-
synchronous orbit 435 miles above
Earth, according to estimates by Long
Lehao, an academician of the Chinese
Academy of Engineering, and other
researchers at the China Academy of
Launch Vehicle Technology. The
estimates were in an article published
in October in the Journal of DeepSpace
Exploration.
Other advantages of such rockets are
that they are flexible in deployment
and do not need ground infrastructure,
said Pang Zhihao, executive editor-in-
chief of Space International magazine.
They also are less susceptible to bad
weather and launch costs are lower
than those of groundlaunched rockets,
he added.
The United States undertook the
world’s first air-launched space
mission in 1990, in which a Pegasus
rocket developed by the former Orbital
Sciences Corp was launched from a
refitted B-52 strategic bomber to send
two small satellites into orbit. Since
then, 43 Pegasus missions have been
carried out, the most recent in
December. Several US space companies,
including Virgin Galactic and
Generation Orbit Launch Services, are
developing air-launched rockets.
Chinese designers have been quietly
working on the concept for years. China
Aerospace Science and Technology
Corp, parent of Mr Li’s academy,
displayed a scale model of a winged,
solid-propellant, air-launched rocket in
2006 at the Sixth China International
Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in
Zhuhai, Guangdong province.

This article was originally produced and
published by China Daily. View the
original article at chinadaily.com.cn