2023-04-20 12:45:15
Cargo spacecraft that travel between Earth and a space station are robotic vehicles that carry groceries, fuel, and other supplies from Earth to the station, and often waste when they make the return trip.
China is strongly promoting its space program and is strongly committed to its own space stations.
The Tianzhou model of space freighter was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, as part of China’s manned space station program. Design work on the Tianzhou began in 2010.
The main tasks of the freighter are the transportation and temporary storage of supplies for space stations, temporary storage and removal of debris from the visited space station, controlled drop to a predetermined area; cooperation with the visited space station to control the orbit of the combined station and freighter combination; and some auxiliary tasks within the framework of the development of space applications and to test the technical capacities of the ships.
Jianyu Lei, Dongyong Jia, Mingsheng Bai, Yong Feng and Xingqian Li of the China Academy of Space Technology have released a detailed description of the Tianzhou spacecraft, including the structure, function and main technologies of the subsystems.
The Chinese Tiangong space stations only have the Tianzhou freighters as cargo vehicles. Tianzhou spacecraft have burst into space supplies, refueling, and fully autonomous rapid rendezvous and docking between space vehicles.
The Tianzhou freighter consists of two modules: a cargo cabin for carrying pressurized cargo and a propulsion module. It measures about 10.6 meters long (including the maneuvering thrusters at one end) and 3.35 meters in diameter.
The total mass of the ship is 7 tons, with a maximum total payload of 6.5 tons. The pressurized cargo carried in the cargo cabin typically includes food, water, clothing, and experimental equipment for the astronauts. The fuel to carry out maneuvers in the ship-station complex and the fuel for refueling is loaded in the propulsion module.
The maximum residence time of the Tianzhou freighter attached to a Tiangong space station is approximately 365 days.
Up to 6 tons of debris can be loaded onto a Tianzhou spacecraft, burning up during atmospheric reentry.
In-orbit refueling technology can extend the life of Tiangong stations and make them more cost-effective. The Tianzhou and Tiangong use, in general terms, the same system as the Russian Progress freighters and the International Space Station (ISS).
A distinctive feature of Tianzhou freighters is their ability to carry pressurized cargo and non-pressurized cargo.
In this sense, a particularly interesting aspect of the Tianzhou ships is that of their three possible configurations. In the early design phase of the Tianzhou freighter, Jianyu Lei and his colleagues came up with three configurations for the freighter: one fully enclosed, one semi-enclosed, and one fully open. Having the three versions, there would be more versatility for the type of load to be transported. The semi-closed and fully open versions facilitate the transport of bulky loads that do not require pressurization, such as satellites, large solar panels and experiment platforms that must be directly exposed to the space environment.
The three configurations of the Tianzhou freighter. From left to right: the fully closed version, the semi-closed version and the fully open version. (Image: Space Science & Technology)
Because the Tiangong space stations now do not have large unpressurized cargo transportation needs, only the initial development of the semi-enclosed version and the conceptual design of the fully open version have been completed. Currently, all missions use the fully closed version.
Jianyu Lei and his colleagues expound many more technical details about the Tianzhou spacecraft in the academic journal Space Science & Technology, under the title “Research and Development of the Tianzhou Cargo Spacecraft.” (Fountain: NCYT de Amazings)
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