CCTV News: Dream Experimental Cabin and Combination of Space Station are rendezvoused and connected. It can be said that the space "handshake" between the two largest mass spacecraft in my country's manned space engineering has significantly increased the control difficulty. To this end, scientific researchers have also come up with many ways to allow them to "shake hands" steadily in space.
This time, the Mengtian Experimental Cabin will be rendezvoused and connected with the space station combination. It can be said that it is the most "stronger" space "handshake" in the history of China's aerospace . The Mengtian Experimental Cabin weighs 23 tons, while the space station is a "four-cabin" combination composed of Tianhe Core Cabin, Wentian Experimental Cabin, Shenzhou 14 manned spacecraft, and Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft . The total weight exceeds 60 tons. To allow these two giants to complete the rendezvous and docking, they must "shake hands steadily" and minimize the impact force between them.
General chief designer of the Space Station System Electricity System of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group Liang Xiaofeng: In order to overcome the impact of large impacts on the equipment during the docking process, In fact, in the rendezvous and docking process, some damping designs have been made to adapt to large tonnage and large-mass rendezvous and docking. During the entire docking process, the docking force is slowed or reduced to protect the entire docking mechanism and reduce the impact on the entire assembly and equipment.
Another major test of this rendezvous and docking is that the Mengtian Experimental Cabin carries two huge solar windsurfing . They not only have large areas, but also use flexible materials. It is like carrying a pair of huge "soft wings" for rendezvous and docking. The control difficulty can be said to be unprecedentedly high. To this end, scientific researchers also designed a set of solar windsurfing plans for Mengtian Experimental Cabin, which improved controllability and ensured that the task was safe and successful.
Overall designer of the space station system of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group Luo Chao: When we (Mengtian Experimental Cabin) came to the front, Sun Wings kept flying in a sagging manner. After the docking, the secondary expansion of the Sun Wings was completed.
"Holding hands" in space is difficult. Multiple measures to ensure success.
Dream-Tian Experimental Cabin is similar to the "tall" of Wentian Experimental Cabin launched three months ago, but the rendezvous and docking process is even more "difficulty". In order to solve these problems, scientific researchers designed a large number of plans and measures to ensure the final successful connection of this rendezvous and docking.
According to reports, the first difficulty in this rendezvous and docking is that after the Mengtian Experimental Cabin enters orbit, there is a large deviation from the angle of the sun exposure, resulting in weak power generation capacity of solar wind panels and shortage of energy. If the rendezvous and docking cannot be completed within the specified time, it is necessary to urgently adjust the posture of "Dream Heaven" towards the sun to replenish energy, which will lead to the delay in the rendezvous and docking time. To this end, scientific researchers specially formulated a failure plan for the rendezvous and docking task for "Mengtian".
The second difficulty lies in the goal of this rendezvous and docking - the space station assembly. The last time the Wentian Experimental Cabin was renowned for the last time, the combination was a symmetrical configuration of the "one-character" and when the Mengtian Experimental Cabin was renowned for the interception, the Wentian Experimental Cabin had completed the transposition, so the combination was an asymmetrical configuration of the "L" shape, which significantly increased the difficulty of controlling the in-orbit attitude of the space station.
Overall designer of the space station system of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group Luo Chao: adopts a pitch biasing angle, which can save a lot of propellant and also effectively utilize space torque. Then, when Dream Sky Cabin enters the final translation and closer section, the pitch angle will be adjusted to a full level state and wait for the rendezvous and docking of Dream Sky Experiment Cabin.
In addition, when "Mengtian" approaches the combination, it is necessary to turn on the reverse push engine to slow down. The engine's plume will interfere with the posture of the combination, which makes it more difficult to connect the Mengtian experimental cabin and the space station at the last moment. However, under the "careful design" of scientific researchers, the Mengtian Experimental Cabin accurately identified the relative distance and relative posture with the space station assembly, and finally achieved high-precision rendezvous and docking through a little bit.
Three-type solar wing provides abundant energy for Chinese space station
Dream sky experimental module docks with the Chinese space station and implements transposition, the Chinese space station will form a "T" configuration, and the Chinese space station will also use three different solar wings at the same time.
During the planning and design of China's space station, scientific researchers developed three generations of solar wings according to the characteristics and needs of different capsules, each with its own characteristics. The Shenzhou manned spacecraft uses the first generation of rigid sun wings and the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft uses the second generation of semi-rigid sun wings.
Deputy Chief Designer of Mengtian Experimental Cabin Power Supply of Space Station, Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Liu Bihai : The first generation we used is called rigid substrate. It uses carbon fiber plus aluminum honeycomb structure, and its size is relatively large. On the basis of further increasing the original power demand, our cargo spacecraft used the second generation of semi-rigid solar cell wings, which used a carbon fiber frame and glass fiber net, just like a tennis racket, which greatly reduced the weight of the entire sun wing.
Compared with Shenzhou spacecraft and cargo spacecraft, the two experimental compartments of the space station are very large in size. At the same time, the experimental cabin also needs to carry a large number of cabinets to complete a number of on-orbit experiments, and use a lot of electricity. To this end, scientific researchers have specially developed the third generation of flexible solar wings to ensure the power consumption needs of the experimental cabin.
Deputy Chief Designer of Mengtian Experimental Cabin Power Supply of the Space Station of the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Liu Bihai: The solar wings used in the Mengtian Experimental Cabin are our third generation solar wings, which we call flexible solar wings. They have the characteristics of light weight, long life and high power. The power generation capacity of two solar wings in a single cabin is about 18 kilowatts. In layman's terms, the power generation capacity of my single Mengtian experimental cabin can be used in one day (for three months) for a family of three.
After the combination of Tianhe, Wentian and Mengtian, the daily power generation of the space station can reach nearly 1,000 degrees, allowing China's space station to truly achieve "worry-free electricity use".
The new generation of sun wings empowers "Dream Sky"
The new generation of flexible solar windsurfing adds new impetus to the Chinese space station. What is this flexible solar windsurfing like? What are the characteristics? Follow the reporter from the Taiwan Channel to check it out.
CCTV reporter Chen Qingbin: The electricity converted from is the energy source of in-orbit spacecraft. What is different from ordinary spacecraft is that the Dream Sky test cabin launched this time is loaded with a pair of "soft wings" behind me - a flexible sun windsurfing plate. As you can see, the thickness of this solar wind plate is less than 1 mm, which is "thin as paper". There are also many small mirrors of dark blue glass on it. Each of these small mirrors is like a small space power station. It is connected in series and parallel to form an solar cell array, providing a continuous stream of energy guarantee for the spacecraft.
The solar wind panel of Mengtian Experimental Cabin uses my country's latest generation of solar cell array technology - flexible triple-junction gallium arsenide solar cell array, which is composed of more than 100,000 flexible solar cells. These flexible solar cells weigh only 50% of the weight per unit area of traditional solar cells, but the efficiency of photoelectric conversion has achieved a significant increase.
Su Bin, project leader of the space station solar cell array of China Electric Energy Co., Ltd.: triple-junction gallium arsenide solar cells have a conversion efficiency of more than twice as high as traditional ground-based silicon batteries.
In order to ensure the on-orbit life of the space station, the development team continued to carry out high-voltage flexible solar array technology research and development, and completed more than 80,000 high and low temperature cycle tests to ensure the stable and flexible solar array structure. It is expected that the design life of the low-orbit solar array will be increased from 5 years to 15 years.
Source: CCTV.com
