On December 17, the Central Propaganda Department held a meeting with Chinese and foreign journalists, inviting five party members and representatives in the field of manned spaceflight to meet and exchange views with Chinese and foreign journalists around "flying in the sky and writing loyalty to dreams".
Since 1992, when China implemented the "three-step" development strategy of manned spaceflight projects, more than 20 years of struggle has cultivated a contingent of high-quality talents who are particularly able to endure hardships, fight, tackle key problems, and dedicate themselves, and have cultivated and built a great spirit of manned spaceflight.
At the meeting, 5 party representatives told their personal experiences and responded to what is the spirit of manned spaceflight. Through their descriptions, we have seen the great leap and brilliant achievements made in the "three-step" of manned spaceflight, and next year, the curtain will be opened on the construction phase of the space station.
Wang Ke: Working overtime and almost no rest days to complete the research and development work
Wang Ke at work. Courtesy of respondents
Wang Ke, researcher of the Space Application Engineering and Technology Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Integrated Technology Center, has participated in the overall design and payload of the space application system of Shenzhou 7, Shenzhou 8 manned spacecraft, Tiangong-1 target vehicle, Tiangong-2 space laboratory and space station stage. He also gradually grew from an ordinary designer to a deputy chief designer of the system, witnessing and participating in the development and construction of China's manned space applications and science. At this stage, the core task of him and his team is to use the space station platform to build multidisciplinary space science facilities with international advanced level, build a national space laboratory, and create good experimental conditions for scientists to build a dream for nine days.
Wang Ke and his team. Courtesy of respondents
In 2003, Wang Ke entered the Chinese Academy of Sciences to pursue a master's and doctoral degree, and in this year, aerospace hero Yang Liwei took shenzhou 5, fulfilling Chinese thousand-year-old dream of flying. Wang Ke's first job was involved in Shenzhou 7, china's first extravehicular science experiment involving astronauts, that is, a solid lubrication material exposure experiment. As the technical leader, he completed the experiment and felt that the mission was glorious, but the process was also very difficult.
Currently, his team's main job is to build a national space laboratory, that is, to move scientists' ground-based laboratories into space. This difficulty, on the one hand, to meet all scientific needs, on the other hand, but also to consider the applicability to the launch and space environment, but also to maintain the follow-up long-term advanced, which for them, the challenge is relatively large. "At present, 13 scientific experiment cabinets, that is, 13 ground field laboratories, are developed by our team. From program design to product development, to testing and debugging and a series of work, we have been working overtime over the years, almost no rest days or even a complete Spring Festival, and have basically completed all the research and development work. ”
Tang Hongbo: 11 years of hard study and perseverance to achieve the dream of flying
Tang Hongbo in training. Courtesy of respondents
Tang Hongbo, an astronaut of the Astronaut Brigade of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and an astronaut of the Shenzhou 12 flight crew, was once a fighter pilot who flew safely for more than 1,000 hours. In 2010, he became an astronaut through layers of selection, and after 11 years of hard study and perseverance, he carried out the Shenzhou 12 manned mission with Nie Haisheng, commander of the crew astronauts, and Liu Boming, astronaut. During the orbit, they took about a week in the group of 3 to establish a manned environment on the space station, completed a large number of aerospace medicine, space science (test) tests, and completed the installation of extravehicular equipment twice, and successfully returned to the earth after 3 months of orbital flight.
Nie Haisheng, Tang Hongbo, Liu Boming (from left to right). Courtesy of respondents
"The first time I flew in, the first thing I felt when I went in was that it was very big, and I looked far ahead." Tang Hongbo shared his feelings about flying the Shenzhou 12 mission. This is his first trip to space, full of challenges, but also a novel journey, "I came back to see the statistics of netizens, saying that after the rocket was launched into orbit, I looked out 11 times. Tang Hongbo said that returning to Earth he once said that life in space is very good, and it feels really good to go home.
Tang Hongbo is training underwater. Courtesy of respondents
"Astronauts often say that 'the body is weightless, the mind is never weightless'." Tang Hongbo said that it was the party and the people's army that trained him and made him grow from an ordinary rural student to a pilot and an astronaut, and it was the strength of the motherland that gave him strong support for the aerospace industry. He held that the spirit of manned space flight is a spiritual quality accumulated in the development of the manned space undertaking and shared by everyone, a precious spiritual wealth, and a vivid embodiment of the party's fine traditions and the spirit of the times. At the same time, it is also a red gene passed down from generation to generation by astronauts.
Dong Neng: 6 launches will be carried out next year, and the task is even more arduous and complex
In September 2021, Dong Participated in the launch mission of the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft at the Wenchang Cosmodrome. Courtesy of respondents
Director of the General Technology Bureau of the China Manned Space Engineering Office and assistant to the chief designer of China's manned space project, Dong Neng, is mainly engaged in the overall design and overall technical management of the manned space project, and assists the chief engineer of the project to carry out the overall technical work of the space station project. He participated in the development and construction of the space station throughout the process.
In February 2019, Dong Neng (right) visited Academician Wang Yongzhi (left), the first chief designer of the manned space project. Courtesy of respondents
Dong Neng introduced that at the beginning of the space station project, it faced many problems. For example, what kind of space station looks like, what kind of route the space station design takes, and how to build the space station. At that time, the astronauts had just completed their short-term stay, the rendezvous and docking mission was being implemented, and the material transportation system and the Long March 5B carrier rocket had yet to be developed, so it can be said that the task was very arduous. The space station project has been prepared for ten years, and many design researchers have been quietly dedicated and silently adhering to it for ten years, and everyone has taken the construction of Chinese their own space station as a pursuit and dream. It is precisely the courage of the vast number of research and development personnel to climb, dare to surpass, rigorous and meticulous, unity and cooperation, so that a number of key technologies in the space station project can be broken through, one complex technical problem after another can be solved, and the previous tasks have been successfully completed, and in many aspects, a leap-forward step has been achieved.
For example, Tang Hongbo's crew completed a three-month orbital residency for the first time and returned to the predetermined landing area healthily and accurately. The astronauts and the corresponding support facilities completed the 7-hour outgoing activity for the first time, achieving a qualitative leap, and the "God Thirteen" crew Wang Yaping, as a female astronaut and her companion, also completed the more than 6-hour outgoing activity at a time, which was perfect; the core module was in good condition of on-orbit testing, and many indicators were better than expected.
On April 29, 2021, Dong Neng (right) and Academician Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the manned space project (left), launched at the site of the Tianhe core module launch mission. Courtesy of respondents
Next year, it will enter the space station construction stage, it is necessary to carry out 6 launches, complete the rendezvous and docking of the two experimental modules and the core module of the space station, transposition and assembly, which is a major challenge in the construction of the space station and the key point of decisive victory, the task is even more arduous and complex, only by persistently carrying forward the spirit of manned spaceflight, can we complete the tasks and missions entrusted by history, and hand over a qualified answer sheet to the party and the people.
Sun Jun: Next year, the curtain will be opened on the construction phase of the space station
Sun Jun at work. Courtesy of respondents
Over the past 26 years, Sun Jun, chief engineer of the space station mission of Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, has always participated in the flight control of various missions from Shenzhou 1 to the space station stage on the front line, and witnessed the great leap and brilliant achievements of the "three-step" project. Manned spaceflight engineering is a difficult giant system project, the space flight control center plays the role of flight control "nerve center", is the flight control mission organization command center, control and calculation center, data processing center, analysis and decision center, but also the space station operation control center, must ensure that more than 100,000 telemetry parameters and remote control instructions are not bad at all, orbit control to be accurate to milliseconds, millimeters, in order to ensure the safety of astronauts at all times, the stable operation of the space station. This year, the control center completed 5 major tasks in the key technology verification phase of the space station, and the curtain will be opened next year in the space station construction phase.
Sun Jun said that the most important feature of manned space flight control is to ensure absolute safety, and the reliability of the system must reach 4 9s, that is, 0.9999, and the difference of one in ten thousand is only 1. When developing and designing the system, it is necessary to fully consider the safety and reliability of the system, and to do various measures in place and to the end. At the time of mission execution, behind the normal flight control plan, thousands of emergency control plans should be formulated dozens of times.
The space station has to operate in orbit for more than 10 years, and it faces many new challenges and new difficulties for the control center. He introduced, the first is the high density of tasks. While the orbit normally controls the operation of the space station, in the future, it is necessary to carry out four to five round-trip space-to-earth transportation missions every year, launch manned spacecraft for group rotation, and launch cargo spacecraft for material replenishment, so some major tasks such as launch, rendezvous and docking, evacuation and return, and flying around are very intensive; secondly, the operation time is long. To carry out large-scale space science experiments with human participation, the ground needs to carry out 24-hour uninterrupted monitoring and control, and long-term operation also puts forward higher requirements for the safety, reliability, and emergency response capabilities of the system; in addition, in addition to many scientific tests, it is also necessary to carry out complex and professional work such as space material replenishment, astronaut outgoing activities, maintenance and repair in orbit, and remote operation of robotic arms.
In this regard, the control center has designed a new flight control organization model that combines centralized and distributed, and has built an efficient operation control system by means of informatization and networking to ensure the orderly execution of complex flight tasks; and has built a flight control platform system with high autonomy, high reliability and easy expansion to achieve efficient monitoring capabilities. For the tasks of cargo spacecraft and manned spacecraft series and spectralization, the flight preparation process is solidified and standardized, and an emergency process is proposed for some emergency needs.
Berlin Thick: The core components of the space station are autonomously controllable
Berlin thick. Courtesy of respondents
Berlin Hou, deputy chief designer of the space station system of China Manned Space Engineering and researcher of the Space Technology Research Institute of the Aerospace Science and Technology Group, has successively participated in the development of manned spacecraft including Tiangong-1, Tiangong-2 and space stations. In the development process of Tiangong-1, he carried out the design of flight procedures and the design of information systems as the overall deputy chief designer of The Electricity; in the work of Tiangong-2, he was responsible for the design, integration and testing of the entire system as the overall chief designer; in the work of the space station, he was responsible for the operation management of the entire space station and related ground development work as the deputy chief designer.
Berlin Houhe development team. Courtesy of respondents
Berlin Hou said that the key technology of the spacecraft is the paving stone of China's manned space road, and it is the duty and obligation of astronauts to conquer the key technology. For example, he said that the localization of space station components requires that the components of the space station be independently controllable, of which the core components require 100% domestic production. This is because components are the basis of our key technologies, if the components are imported, it is impossible to overcome key technologies. "Our team worked together to achieve this goal. At the same time, it has also promoted the localization process of related fields and industries of the country, which is another role of the space station. ”
When the research and development team tackles key technologies, it generally adopts a centralized and closed office, with long months and short weeks. Centralized work can be tough, doing only one thing a day. But everyone's goals are the same, and they never say bitter.
He said that the development team has old comrades who have worked for more than 30 years, who have participated in the creation of the spirit of manned spaceflight and have been interpreting this spirit. The post-70s and post-80s have carried the banner of independent innovation, inherited the spirit of manned spaceflight, and are passing it on. The post-90s and even post-95s, newly graduated college students, have new horizons and new technologies, and will further carry forward the spirit of manned spaceflight.
Beijing News reporter Chen Lin
Edited by Liu Qianxian Proofreader Liu Jun