Accumulate little by little! Beidou system begins to provide services, and Hongyun Project will establish a space-based Internet

Tsiolkovsky, the father of space and space, had long predicted, "The earth is the cradle of mankind, but mankind cannot be bound to the cradle forever."

In fact, aerospace is not only related to the future of mankind as a whole, but also a dream of the Chinese people for thousands of years.

As 2018 draws to a close, when we look back at China’s aerospace journey this year, we will find such a long report card:

As of December 27 On Japan, China completed 38 rocket launches in 2018, and the Long March series of carrier rockets also completed the 296th flight, including:

18 Beidou-3 satellites were successfully launched and networked;

Remote sensing satellites No. 30 Group 04 and No. 31 Group 01 were successfully launched;

Gaofen-1 satellites 02, 03, and 04, and Gaofen-5, 6, and 11 satellites were successfully launched;

The successful launch of Gaojing 03 and 04 satellites, and the completion of the first batch of networking with the 01 and 02 satellites launched in 2017;

Chang'e 4 relay satellite "Queqiao", The Chang'e-4 probe was successfully launched one after another;

The Fengyun-2 H star was successfully launched, and network observations were carried out with the Fengyun-2 E, F, and G stars in orbit;

Ocean 1 C and 2 B were successfully launched;

Land Survey Satellite 3 and 4 were successfully launched.

Not only that, 2018 is also the first year of China’s commercial aerospace development. Chinese private companies have made breakthroughs from 0 to 1 in the aerospace field, and commercialization attempts in the aerospace field have also taken substantial steps. For example:

On May 17, "Zero One Space" successfully launched China's first private suborbital commercial rocket into space.

On October 27, the Zhuque-1 solid launch vehicle developed by "Blue Arrow Aerospace" was launched into space. Although the launch failed, it was the first orbital launch of a Chinese private company in the aerospace industry. The great significance of neglect.

On December 7, multiple satellites developed by Changsha’s Tianyi Research Institute were successfully launched.

Among the space launch results in 2018, the most exciting thing is the successful completion of the deployment of the Beidou-3 basic system constellation. With 10 successful launches, 18 Beidou satellites launched into space, and 19 successfully networked, the Beidou navigation system has successfully taken a "key step" from regional to global.

However, just like "Rome was not built in a day," the success of the Beidou-3 global navigation system is also inseparable from the overall background of the entire Beidou system.

Shen Yuan, deputy commander-in-chief of Beidou Navigation Satellites, mentioned in his edification speech that the Beidou satellite navigation system has experienced three stages of advancement: Beidou 1, Beidou 2, and Beidou 3.

In 1994, China began to build Beidou-1. Through continuous iterative upgrades, it completed Beidou-2, a network of 14 satellites, in 2012, steadily realizing the regional system construction of the Beidou system.

Beidou-3, which released a white paper in 2016, completed its first launch in 2017, and has now completed the network of 19 satellites, has basically achieved its development goal from regional to global, and will eventually complete 35 satellites in 2020. The satellite launch network has become one of the four major global positioning systems alongside the American GPS, Russian GLONASS, and European Union Galileo.

According to Shen Yuan, compared with the previous Beidou 1 and 2, Beidou 3 has greatly improved its service scope, aerospace capabilities, compatibility with other global systems, and accuracy. Improved, it can provide high-precision and high-reliability positioning, navigation, and timing services to all types of users around the world, all day and night.

Even compared with the other three major global navigation systems, Beidou-3 also has unique capabilities in inter-satellite link technology, autonomous navigation capabilities, on-orbit reconstruction and on-orbit empowerment technology. Take advantage.

“2018 is the first year of commercial aerospace. There are huge business opportunities in commercial launch, space tourism, and space-earth integration. This will be a trillion-level market. When all conditions are met, The favorable space for commercial aerospace is here, and countless unicorns will be born from it."

In January this year, Liang Xiaohong, former Party Secretary and Vice President of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, gave a speech. It is predicted that the next trend will be commercial aerospace. Private companies entering the aerospace field can be roughly divided into: satellite companies, rocket companies, measurement and control companies, etc. In reality, there is never a shortage of pioneers who dare to be the first to eat crabs.

For example, Shu Chang, Zhang Changwu, and Yang Feng, the CEOs of these private aerospace companies such as Zero One Space, Blue Arrow Aerospace, and Tianyi Research Institute, also successively accepted interviews with Caozuo in 2018, or gave speeches on stage.

Launch vehicles are the basic tools for satellite flying. Zhang Changwu, CEO of Blue Arrow Aerospace, said that rocket launch fuel, reusable technology, and commercialization prospects are all things that private companies must consider.

Medium-sized launch vehicles are currently the only rocket series that can support the future low-orbit launch market. In his opinion, the combination of liquid oxygen and methane will be the most economical, environmentally friendly and practical rocket propellant.

On October 27, 2018, the Zhuque-1 solid launch vehicle developed by Blue Arrow Aerospace was launched. Although it failed to successfully reach space, this was the first orbital launch of a Chinese private aerospace enterprise. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a milestone in the domestic private aerospace industry.

In the past, the aerospace industry was a national-level space race involving all the efforts of the country, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. But as Yang Feng, CEO of Tianyi Research Institute, said in his speech, the current aerospace field has adopted a method of making "micro-satellites", which only takes one year or less and several millions of funds to build them. It is possible to achieve aerospace achievements that took 10 years and cost hundreds of millions in the past.

This small-step-quick approach to aerospace exploration is not only steady and steady, but also creates very realistic operability for the entry of private companies. Just on December 7 this year, multiple satellites developed by Yang Feng's Tianyi Research Institute were successfully launched into space.

According to the plan, the Hongyun Engineering Corporation will launch 156 satellites to establish a global space-based Internet in space that can cover the Antarctic and Arctic. In layman's terms, it allows users to access WiFi without any blind spots around the world. There is no doubt that this project will provide services for many industries in urgent need of seamless global network connections in the future era of artificial intelligence, such as unmanned driving, the Internet of Things, air transportation, and ocean engineering. It will also provide huge opportunities for private aerospace. imagination space.