Shenzhou 3

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Mission dates
Mission: Shenzhou 3
COSPAR-ID : 2002-014A
Spacecraft: Shenzhou
Launcher: Long march 2F
Crew: no
Begin: March 25, 2002, 14:00  UTC
Starting place: Jiuquan
Landing: April 1, 2002, 08:51 UTC
Landing place: Inner Mongolia
Flight duration: 6 d 18 h 51 min
Earth orbits: 107
◄ Before / After ►
Shenzhou 2
(unmanned) 		Shenzhou 4
(unmanned)

Shenzhou 3 ( Chinese  神舟 三号 ) took off on March 25, 2002 and was the third unmanned flight of a Chinese spaceship from the Shenzhou series. This mission was the first Shenzhou flight that would have been able to take a human into space. The main aim was to test the life support systems. A test dummy was therefore on board, which simulated a person's physiological signals such as heart sounds, pulse, breathing, food intake, metabolism and body excretions.

Improved Systems

For financial reasons, the "Project 921-1" for the construction of a manned spacecraft, first approved by the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China and then by the State Council of the People's Republic of China , originally included only two unmanned test flights before one was manned Mission was undertaken. However, when they returned and landed from Shenzhou 2 on January 16, 2001, not all systems were working. An investigation found that this was due to both design flaws and quality defects in the construction of the spaceship. The engineers at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology under the direction of Qi Faren (戚 发轫, * 1933) learned from their mistakes and designed an improved landing system.

In addition, better cabling should be used inside the spaceship. Problems arose with this, however. When the spaceship was already at the Jiuquan Cosmodrome , the technicians noticed a malfunction in an electrical connector during the last check before take-off. The spaceship had to be brought back to the factory in Beijing, where an attempt was made to find the cause of the failure. In the end, it turned out that the connector was designed incorrectly. The communications engineers working with Yang Hong (杨宏, * 1963) had to design a completely new connector. The problem was that the plug was used 77 times in the spaceship. It took three months to redesign, manufacture and check 3000 contacts. The start had to be postponed accordingly and Yang Hong as the responsible department head received a disciplinary penalty. Yang Hong is now a professor at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and technical director of the space station system in the manned space program of the People's Republic of China .

At the beginning of the 1990s, China already had powerful domestic computers, microprocessors and memory chips that were suitable for use in a spaceship, but they first had to be developed. Writing the software for the computer-controlled position control was also extremely difficult. It was not until Shenzhou 3 that a sophisticated system for guidance, navigation and control of the spaceship was used, also called "GNC" because of the English name Guidance, Navigation & Control . This system was then used for all Shenzhou spaceships. To test the GNC system, Shenzhou 3 changed orbit twice during the mission. The first change took place on March 29th at 10:15 UTC, when the corrective engines were ignited for eight seconds and thus brought the spaceship from the originally elliptical to a circular orbit of 330.2 × 337.2 kilometers. The second change took place on March 31st. Shenzhou 3 flew with an inclination of 42.40 °, the first two flights, however, with 42.59 °.

Rescue systems

The main purpose of this test flight for a review of the Academy of solid-fuel rocket technology developed rescue missile scheme, which in case of problems, from 15 minutes before the start and up to 160 seconds after the start, ie during the burn time of the first stage, the return capsule from the launch vehicle forcing off , transported out of the danger zone and carried so high that a parachute landing is possible. In addition, all seven replacement systems used here were tested. After entering orbit, space travelers have more than 180 manually triggered but pre-programmed sequences for an early return in the event of an emergency - of the approximately 700,000 program lines in the spacecraft's systems, only 30% are used for regular operations, 70% are used in emergencies Use - all of which were tested on this flight.

There are also systems for purely manual control of the spaceship. This excessive redundancy was not without controversy at the time. Some engineers at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology pointed out that adding a hand control system made the design of the spaceship more complicated and therefore more error-prone. On October 16, 1993, however, the return satellite FSW-1-5 (尖兵 一号 甲 遥 五 or groundbreaker 1A-5) had an attitude control problem, so that instead of returning to Earth, the satellite was in a higher orbit changed and stayed there for three years. If it had been a manned capsule at the time, the spaceman would not have survived without some manual intervention. After consulting with Russian cosmonauts, who pointed out the corresponding facilities in the Soyuz spacecraft, the engineers gave up their resistance to the manual control.

landing

44 different experiments were carried out on board. After having circumnavigated the earth 107 times and after all systems had worked perfectly during the tests, the return capsule landed in Inner Mongolia on April 1, 2002 at 08:51 UTC without any problems.

Web links

Individual evidence

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  5. ↑ 第十二届 光华 工程 科技 奖 获奖 人员 信息. In: cae.cn. June 8, 2018, accessed January 15, 2020 (Chinese).
  6. ↑ 空间站 系统. In: cmse.gov.cn. April 3, 2019, accessed January 15, 2020 (Chinese).
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  9. ^ Wei Long: Shenzhou-3 On The Pad Awaiting Launch. In: spacedaily.com. March 12, 2002, accessed October 4, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Wei Long: New Details Of Shenzhou And Its Launcher Revealed. In: spacedaily.com. April 1, 2002, accessed October 4, 2019 .
  11. ↑ 了不起 的 中国 制造: 为了 登陆 月球 和 火星 ， 中国 新一代 载人 飞船 做 了 这些 改变. In: zhuanlan.zhihu.com. September 6, 2018, accessed October 10, 2019 (Chinese).
  12. ↑ 周 雁: 神舟 二十 载 问 天 不 停歇. In: cmse.gov.cn. January 10, 2020, accessed January 16, 2020 (Chinese).
  13. ↑ Mark Wade: FSW in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on January 16, 2020 (English).
  14. ↑ 朱增泉: 中国 飞船 - 中国 载人 航天 工程 总设计师 王永志 访谈 录. In: people.com.cn. October 17, 2003, accessed January 16, 2020 (Chinese).
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  16. ^ Sven Grahn: Shenzhou-3 notes. In: svengrahn.pp.se. April 1, 2002, accessed October 4, 2019 .