How to treat China's successful launch of 22 stars with one arrow?

The biggest attraction of the Long March 8 launch was that 1 launch put 22 commercial satellites into orbit, setting a new record for the number of satellites carried by China in a single space flight. Twenty-two stars with one arrow doesn't sound like SPACEX with more than 60 satellites with one arrow. Even our neighbors in South Asia were more than one arrow a few years ago. You don't have to worry about that. Does not mean that the absolute number of satellites must be high. If the micro-nano satellites the size of mobile phones and notebooks are not heavy, such small satellites will become small space junk in a few months, which is nothing to be afraid of. The key still depends on the color of the satellite and the carrying capacity of the rocket. Long March 8 took 12 separation actions, and gradually separated 22 satellites in turn to ensure that each satellite got off safely.

Long March 8 is the latest model of China Long March series launch vehicle, which uses green liquid propellant and is a new generation of medium-sized two-stage liquid-limited launch vehicle. From the perspective of carrying capacity, it belongs to a medium-sized rocket, which is far from the Long March 5. But people pay special attention to the Long March 8 for two main reasons.

First, its commercial value, this rocket is mainly used to launch spacecraft in near-earth orbit or sun-synchronous orbit, which can meet the demand of high-density launch in low-to-medium orbit in China in the future. Officially, it can undertake more than 80% of China's launch missions in low and medium orbit. The Long March-8 Tele-2 rocket launched this time adopted a booster-free configuration with a polished rod rocket, indicating that the launch of these 22 satellites still has reservations about the capabilities of Long March-8. This year, the Long March 8 will also complete the final assembly of 1 rocket and put into production seven rockets, which will provide good support for the subsequent major satellite Internet constellation networking projects.

Second, this rocket undertakes the verification of China's reusable rocket recovery technology from the beginning of its design. On February 22, 65438, Long March 8 made its first flight at Wenchang Space Launch Site. At that time, the key technologies of rocket recovery were verified at the rocket core level, such as on-line flight fault identification, autonomous attitude control, and engine thrust throttling adjustment. Therefore, Long March 8 is expected to become the first rocket in the Long March rocket family to be reused in the future.

After the launch of Wenchang, let's look at Jiuquan. At 7: 44 a.m. on February 27th, China adopted the Long March 4 C 30 carrier rocket at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and successfully launched the B-Star 0 1 group of Geodetic Exploration 1.

The name is a bit complicated. This is a remote sensing satellite for earth observation, but it is not an ordinary optical remote sensing satellite, but a SAR satellite loaded with L-band differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar. Because it is detected by radar, it can penetrate clouds and fog and can be observed day and night. It has the characteristics of all-weather, all-day, multi-mode and multi-polarization. This kind of remote sensing satellite is very suitable for extreme weather, earthquake prevention and disaster reduction, emergency rescue and other special scenes.

In fact, last month, that is, 654381October 26th this year, the 0 1 group A star of Ground Penetrating No.1 was successfully launched in Jiuquan. At present, the on-orbit test is being carried out as planned, and the related functions and performance of the satellite are normal. After the B star launched today is in orbit, it will be tested in orbit alone, and then it will be tested in formation with the A star. The A and B satellites in the 0 1 group of Geodetic Exploration No.1 are like a pair of twin brothers, and their technical states are basically the same. They are the first scientific research satellite projects approved in the National Medium-and Long-Term Development Plan for Civil Space Infrastructure (20 15-2025). Double-star in orbit can complete the main observation tasks such as surface deformation measurement and digital elevation model acquisition, support and serve the application needs of land resources, earthquakes, disaster prevention and mitigation, basic geographic information acquisition, forestry and so on, and can form a rapid response capability to major disasters.

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As we know, the number of space launches in China has reached 50, with an average of more than 4 times a month. Now, everyone is used to the success of space launch, but that doesn't mean there is no risk. The success rate of space launch will never be 100%, and every success is hard-won. For astronauts, how to improve the effect of satellite application and how to improve the safety and economy of rocket use is still something to be explored for a long time to come.