Cai Yongwei: The Long March 5 of China Long March 5

New Yinye

Cai Yongwei

China successfully launched the Long March 5 Yaotang Rockets in the evening of Friday (December 27, 2019), and sent satellites into the space scheduled track. It was regarded as a milestone in China from the Aerospace to the aerospace power.

This is the third launch of the Long March 5. The importance of this aerospace mission is that it verifies the key technologies of the Long March 5, especially because the previous two launch has occurred.

In the first launch of November 2016, although the task was finally completed smoothly, the Long March 5 was successful, but the engine failure occurred during the process, so that the launch time was repeatedly delayed.

The second launch mission in July of the following year was announced that it failed. Although the flight a few minutes ago was normal, it was more than five minutes, and the star arrows fell into the sea.Later surveys showed that the rocket's engine failed again, and the local structure had abnormalities, resulting in a sharp decline in the thrust of the engine.

The previous two test performances of the Long March 5 showed that its technology mdash; MDASH; especially the engine technology that has long hindered the development of China's aerospace field for a long time. At that time, it was not perfectly mature, which also caused the outside world to question the development of Chinese rocket technology.

Now that the launch task is performing again, after more than two years of repair and research and development, the relevant personnel have overcome the engine technology and finally exchanged for success.According to Chinese media, the research and development team gathered the strength of hundreds of experts and scholars from more than 20 units including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Defense University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Peking University, and China Aerospace Science and Technology Group to jointly conduct technical research.

After half a year, the Long March 5 was 4SHY in 2018; the monthly review was completed, and the hydroxide engine continued to go through 14 consecutive trial assessments. The result was successful.However, the new problem followed: the improved engine occurred in November of the same year in the long -range test process, but it was finally solved quickly.

By April 2019, when the assembly work of the Long March 5 Yaoyao Three Rockets entered the final stage, a core -level hydroxide engine used for subsequent tasks appeared abnormal vibration frequency during the test data analysis.Researchers later discovered that the problem was that the local structure of the engine was very sensitive to the complex power environment and easily caused resonance. Therefore, the engine structure was improved and more than 10 large ground tests were completed.

The successful flight of the Long March 5 this time not only indicates that the engine problem that plagues this rocket has basically been solved, but also marks that China's ability to launch more spacecraft or send spacecraft to farther deep space has been improved.

Facing the future, the success of this task also indicates that the Long March 5 is about to officially enter the application phase MDash; MDASH; it has been designated as a carrier of major aerospace tasks such as manned space station, the third phase of the lunar exploration project, and even the first Mars detection.It is foreseeable that some of the space missions that have been delayed or shelved due to the launching task have been lost earlier, and it is expected to start or restart in the near future.

As the new generation of carrier rockets currently in China, the task undertaken by the Long March 5 is naturally not light.This large rocket with a diameter of nearly 20 floors and a diameter of 5 meters has a take -off thrust of more than 1,000 tons. The carrier capacity of the Earth simultaneous transfer of the track is 14 tons, and the near -ground orbital carrier capacity reaches 25 tons.Many new generation of aerospaces in China can only be launched by the Long March V, which is nicknamed as Fat Five.

However, there is still a significant gap compared with the traditional aerospace power, the United States and Russia.Taking the heavy Falcon developed by the US private company Space X as an example, this rocket's launch capacity is about double the Long March 5.Some industry players have pointed out that the current level of thrust technology of the Long March 5 only reached the level of the United States and Russia 10 years ago.In fact, the Long March 5 was postponed for about half a year for various reasons.

It can be said that it is obviously not a matter of overnight the March 5 that has been developed in 10 years.It is important to successfully complete this re -flying mission, but it is only the beginning of the long march to the aerospace power.