Shuguang (spaceship)

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Shuguang ( Chinese  曙光 , means “dawn” in Mandarin ), also known as “Project 714” ( Chinese  七一 四 工程 ), was to be the first manned spacecraft in the People's Republic of China during the late 1960s and early 1970s . It was supposed to be a two-man capsule similar to the American Gemini spaceship and should have launched in 1973. The Shuguang program was canceled on May 13, 1972 due to financial, technical and political problems.

Early development

China's manned space program started in the early 1960s and was launched by Qian Xuesen , then deputy head of the Department of Defense's 5th Research Institute . At first it was just a mind game; the semi-serious preliminary planning began at the end of March 1966 . First, suborbital test flights should be carried out with animals. But shortly after the plans were made, some scientists involved in the project were persecuted in the course of the Cultural Revolution and the development process came to a standstill.

Planning

Space medicine as a preliminary stage to manned space travel has been practiced in China since 1958, originally by three institutes that were merged on April 1, 1968 at the suggestion of Qian Xuesen to later become the " Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology ". The 8th engineering office of the Seventh Ministry of Mechanical Engineering , headed by chief engineer Wang Xiji , had been designing a spaceship since 1966 . In April 1970, the State Council of the People's Republic of China and the Central Committee of the CCP held a meeting with over 400 experts from 80 research institutes across the country at the Jingxi Hotel in Beijing (京西 宾馆, not a hotel, but a state convention center) the engineering office, meanwhile renamed “Institute 508”, presented plan drawings and a 1: 1 model of the spaceship. Late in the evening of April 24, 1970, while the experts were tasting the astronauts' food, it was announced that China's first satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, had successfully lifted off into space.

Wang Xiji, who correctly recognized in 1964 that it was technically not possible, as suggested by Field Marshal Nie Rongzhen at the time , to use a modified medium-range rocket to put a satellite of the planned weight into orbit, did not point this out in his concept for the manned spacecraft that the Gemini spaceship he had taken as a model weighed 3800 kg, while the planned Changzheng 2 launcher could only carry a payload of 2000 kg. None of the assembled experts brought up this problem; everyone was eager to send a Chinese spaceman into space as soon as possible.

Barely three months later, on July 14, 1970, Mao Zedong approved a written plan submitted by the Defense Technology Commission of the People's Liberation Army to select spacemen and build the spaceship designed by Institute 508 by ringing his name on the mailing list . After the July 14th date, this venture, which provided for two astronauts to be put into space by the end of 1973, was called "Project 714" (714 工程). On August 9, 1970, the Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology was informed by the Defense Technology Commission, its superior department, that the selection of space travelers should begin. The requirements were: interceptor pilot, 1.59 m to 1.74 m tall, 24 to 38 years old, 55 to 70 kg in weight and 300 flight hours. After an initial review of 1,840 pilots from 14 air force bases who fit into the selection grid, 88 candidates were shortlisted after further tests that included not only their physical and mental condition, but also their origins from a proletarian family and political reliability . When the review process ended on March 15, 1971, there were only 20 candidates left, later 19. These included Lu Xiangxiao , Wang Zhiyue , Dong Xiaohai, and Fang Guojun . The astronauts began the training in November 1971, the concrete development of the launcher, which the Shuguang-1 (曙光 一号, so "Dawn 1") called spaceship should carry into space, had started in 1970.

Shuguang spaceship design

The Shuguang spaceship was similar in appearance to the American Gemini spaceship , but should be smaller and lighter so that it could be launched with the Changzheng-2 launcher, which was under development. The two spacemen sat in a pressurized cabin with ejection seats and instruments. The directional engines, fuel tanks, power supply and telecommunications systems would have been housed in the aft of the spaceship. The stern would have been separated from the crew area for re-entry, but there was no system for landings on the mainland. In the best case scenario, the spaceship would have landed on a water surface using a parachute. Otherwise the space travelers would have had to catapult themselves out of the capsule with their ejection seats and each would have to land with their own parachute.

New spaceport

The planned launch site, not just for Shuguang-1, was a new cosmodrome to be built in Xichang , Sichuan Province , a location that, due to its greater distance from the Soviet Union, seemed safer than the Jiuquan Cosmodrome in Inner Mongolia . By spring 1972, the area for launch ramp 1 had been leveled, a fuel store dug into the mountainside had been set up and the construction pit for the test hall had been dug. Then the Shuguang program was stopped on May 13, 1972. The plans for the cosmodrome were changed again and again until the very ambitious plan of a manned space flight was finally buried in early 1975.

Abort the program

Like the Dongfeng 113 (东风 113) fighter aircraft ten years earlier, “Project 714” was largely fictional from the start. Spacemen were selected and space food developed, but the spaceship itself never got beyond a model made of wood and cardboard. Within the Chinese government (they were still in the cultural revolution ) the Shuguang project was not without controversy from the start. Not a few politicians were of the opinion at the time that, instead of burning money for a prestige project, one should use these funds to build hydropower plants and artificial fertilizer factories. When those responsible asked for more money at the beginning of 1972, Mao declared that earthly things had priority and that space would be dealt with later ("先把 地球 上 的 事 搞好 ， 地球 外 的 事 往后 放 放"), something that Prime Minister Zhou Enlai Qian Xuesen had expressed earlier. On May 13, 1972, the last spaceman was sent back to his original air force unit and in March 1975 the project was discontinued by the Defense Technology Commission on instructions from the State Council.

Legacies

While today's Xi'an satellite control center with its network of TT&C stations was set up in connection with China's first satellite Dong Fang Hong I , and the Jiangyin orbit tracking ship base in connection with the Dongfeng-5 ICBM , today's cabin suits of the people's republic's manned space program China is indeed a legacy of the Shuguang Project. Today's suits are white instead of orange, but also weigh 10 kg, with a 10 kg parachute added back then. The space food of that time consisted of Gostein-sized nutrient tablets that could be put into the mouth without biting off, i.e. crumb-free, whereas today astronaut food is used in plastic containers. The Chinese astronaut training center in Beijing has now developed 100 different space dishes in six categories (vegetables, desserts, etc.).

The Chinese variant of USB technology also goes back to the Shuguang project. Chen Fangyun , who has been responsible for telemetry and orbit tracking of the Chinese satellites at the Weinan ground station since 1967 , was responsible for the question of telemetry and communication with the space travelers on the “Unified S-” developed at the time by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Apollo program . Band "where all data is transmitted on a single carrier wave in the S-band . After the Shuguang project was discontinued, he developed the technology further and it has since been used in the control of the Chinese satellites, the manned space flights and the lunar program of the People's Republic of China .

The main achievement of Project 714 was the spaceman selection process. The personnel files of the 19 astronauts that remained at the end of the proceedings at the time show that all of them had made careers in the Air Force and, despite the resumption of regular fighter pilot duties , had remained healthy. Therefore, in 1997, when selecting the astronauts for the Shenzhou program, similar requirements were made: 1.60 m to 1.72 m tall, 25 to 35 years old, 55 to 70 kg. In 1997, fighter-bomber pilots were also accepted who had to perform fewer actions in a given period of time than interceptors when practicing aerial battles , for which the applicants had to prove at least 600 flight hours.

There is also a continuity with the current manned space program of the People's Republic of China in terms of technical personnel. Numerous engineers of the second generation, i.e. after Qian Xuesen and Zhao Jiuzhang , had gained valuable experience working on the project, which they were able to use twenty years later. For example, Qi Faren (戚 发轫, * 1933), responsible for the development of the pressurized cabin at the Shuguang spacecraft, became director of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology in 1983 and was chief designer of the Shenzhou spacecraft from 1992 to 2004 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shuguang 1 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed August 20, 2019.
  2. ↑ Chang Zheng 2 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed December 8, 2019.
  3. ↑ 刘炳峰: 毛泽东 与 中国 “载人 航天” 事业 的 起步. In: calt.spacechina.com. June 14, 2016, Retrieved August 20, 2019 (Chinese).
  4. ↑ 丁伟敏: 首批 航天 员 19 人 胜出 为 后来 积累 了 宝贵 的 经验. In: news.zj.com. September 16, 2005, accessed August 20, 2019 (Chinese).
  5. ↑ 赵 雁: 筑 梦 九天 —— 中国 载人 航天 发展 纪实. In: gongyewenxue.com. Retrieved August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  6. ↑ For comparison, the first Chinese space mice started on 5 October 1990 into space, the first unmanned Shenzhou capsule made its test flight in 1999, and the first manned space flight took place on 15 October 2003, thirteen years after the first two mice.
  7. ↑ 田雅文: “曙光” 号 和 神舟 号 飞船 有何 区别？ In: cmse.gov.cn. September 11, 2015, accessed August 20, 2019 (Chinese).
  8. ↑ 韩 维 正: 向 星辰 大海 更 深处 挺进. In: cmse.gov.cn. December 26, 2019, accessed January 1, 2020 (Chinese). Includes original drawing of the Shuguang spaceship.
  9. ↑ Shuguang 1 in Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed December 23, 2018.
  10. ↑ 王晓 易: 从 酒泉 到 文昌 ： 中国 四大 发射 基地 诞生 纪实. In: war.163.com. June 7, 2009, Retrieved August 20, 2019 (Chinese).
  11. ↑ 辛 文: 大跃进 中国 曾 欲 造 世界 最强 战机 为何 最终 失败？ In: news.ifeng.com. April 2, 2015, accessed September 8, 2019 (Chinese).
  12. ↑ 韩 维 正: 向 星辰 大海 更 深处 挺进. In: cmse.gov.cn. December 26, 2019, accessed January 1, 2020 (Chinese).
  13. ↑ Shuguang 1 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed August 20, 2019.
  14. ↑ 刘炳峰: 毛泽东 与 中国 “载人 航天” 事业 的 起步. In: calt.spacechina.com. June 14, 2016, Retrieved August 20, 2019 (Chinese).
  15. ↑ 舱内 航天 服. In: spacechina.com. September 8, 2011, accessed August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  16. ↑ 怎样 穿 航天 服. In: news.sina.com.cn. October 11, 2003, accessed August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  17. ↑ 刘炳峰: 毛泽东 与 中国 “载人 航天” 事业 的 起步. In: calt.spacechina.com. June 14, 2016, Retrieved August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  18. ↑ 李国利 、 朱 霄 雄: 中国 航天 员 中心 实现 载人 航天 飞行 ９ 类 关键 技术 重大 突破. In: xinhuanet.com. March 30, 2018, Retrieved August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  19. ↑ 张晓祺: 揭开 航天 食品 神秘 面纱 ： 实 拍 中国 航天 员 专用 食品. In: scitech.people.com.cn. October 17, 2012, accessed August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  20. ↑ 陈芳允 : 卫星 上天 ， 我们 测控. In: cas.cn. Retrieved September 9, 2019 (Chinese).
  21. ↑ Shuguang 1 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on August 21, 2019.
  22. ↑ 张琦: 我国 航天 员 是 如何 选拔 的？ In: cmse.gov.cn. September 17, 2015, accessed August 21, 2019 (Chinese).
  23. ↑ 韩 维 正: 向 星辰 大海 更 深处 挺进. In: cmse.gov.cn. December 26, 2019, accessed January 2, 2020 (Chinese).