According to the China Manned Space Engineering Office, the Shenzhou 13 manned spacecraft has completed all the scheduled tasks and will choose the opportunity to evacuate the core module complex of the space station and return to the Dongfeng landing site in the near future.
At present, the Shenzhou 13 crew has made various preparations before the evacuation of the spacecraft, and the Dongfeng landing site and engineering-related systems are carrying out various preparations for the return of astronauts.
Astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping, and Ye Guangfu are about to leave for the embrace of the motherland. The process of Shenzhou 13 returning to the earth, simply put, is three steps, separation - through the atmosphere - landing, it sounds very simple, but in fact, each step has many elaborate links, and the technology content is very high.
Poke the video, watch the reporter interview with the engineer responsible for controlling the return of the spacecraft, and learn how Shenzhou 13 returned to Earth
How many steps does the astronaut return?
Cui Xia, CCTV reporter: The model that everyone sees is actually what the Future China Space Station will look like after it is built. This section is the location of the Celestial and Core Capsules that have been launched in space.
Where is our Shenzhou XIII spacecraft? It is now docked at a pair of interfaces in its radial direction, which is in the lower part of the core cabin.
These two are about the size of the core module and are the two experimental modules to be launched in the future.
Directly opposite the core cabin, the current docking is the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft, this position is actually not docked now, before the Tianzhou-2 spacecraft has been withdrawn, the future this place is to dock the Shenzhou 14th and 15th spacecraft. So after the completion of the future space station, we can see two manned spacecraft, a cargo spacecraft and a space station, and two experimental modules at the same time to form China's space station.
Dong Wenqiang, deputy chief designer of the guidance navigation and control subsystem of the Shenzhou 13 spacecraft of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group: During the entire return process, the astronauts gradually began to withdraw to the node module from the core module position, and then returned to the process of preparing for the separation of the return module, first to the position of 19 meters below the radial direction, and then to the position of 200 meters. It will turn into a positive flying posture. After that, it will take about 5 more laps in orbit.
How are the three compartments of the Shenzhou spacecraft separated?
During the return process of the Shenzhou spacecraft, it will carry out orbit maintenance and orbit correction in turn. After that, the orbital module and the propulsion module will be separated from the return module, and finally only the return capsule will return to the ground, so what is the process of separation of these three modules?
Dong Wenqiang: If the three cabins are braked before braking, the spacecraft will adjust an attitude, which we call the first posture adjustment, and then the orbital module and the return module will be separated. After the separation, it is necessary to adjust another posture, and after the adjustment is completed, it is the posture of flying upside down. By about 145 km, the return capsule and the propulsion module will be separated. Then if we fly down for a while, we call an adjusted leveling attitude of the return capsule. If you fly further down, you will re-enter the atmosphere and begin a process of control of the return.
Source: CCTV news client