【Military Subplane】Author: Big Ivan
Jiuquan, December 14 (Xinhua) -- On the same day, China used the Long March-2F carrier rocket to send a type 1 reusable spacecraft into space at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. It is reported that after the reusable spacecraft enters space, it will carry out reusable technology verification and space science experiments as planned to provide technical support for the peaceful use of space, and the spacecraft will return to the scheduled landing site after operating in orbit for a period of time. Obviously, for us, this is a "less words, more things" news.
Coincidence or not? While we were testing reusable spacecraft, the Yankees were also testing the same spacecraft. According to a report by CNN quoted by the global network, the US military will soon relaunch all of its X-37B reusable aircraft in a highly secret state. The difference is that compared to the X-37B launched on the Atlas-V rocket of the Launch Alliance, the X-37B used the Heavy Falcon launch vehicle of Space-X for the first time.
Compared with Atlas-V's low earth orbit (LEO) carrying capacity of only 8.9 tons, Musk's Heavy Falcon has a low earth orbit carrying capacity of up to 64 tons, which is about 8 times higher, and the geosynchronous orbit (GEO) capacity has reached about 10 tons, which still has certain advantages over Atlas-V. It is said that the X-37B's scheduled orbital altitude is as high as 22,000 miles, that is, an altitude of 36,000 kilometers in geosynchronous orbit, setting a new orbital altitude record for the X-37B aircraft. This also makes the space launch of the X-37B reusable vehicle more and more concerning.
However, it is very unfortunate that this round of X-37B launches can be described as jumping tickets again and again - first said that it was launched on the night of the 11th EST, and then jumped to the night of the 12th, and the launch on the night of the 12th was postponed again, postponed to the 14th, that is, it was launched with our own reusable aircraft. But as of the time of Big Ivan's writing, there is still no news of the launch of the X-37B, and it seems that this time we actually took the lead.
One is the Americans' X-37B spacecraft and the other is our own reusable spacecraft, what are the differences in performance between the two, and have the Americans really been surpassed by us this time? Big Ivan feels that in terms of the nature and difficulty of the mission, the X-37B launched by the US military this time surpasses us in terms of mission difficulty, and more importantly, it is difficult to say whether the X-37B flight was for peaceful purposes or military purposes.
U.S. X-37B launch mission
It is very simple to say that the difficulty of the US military's X-37B mission exceeds ours, according to our public information, our reusable spacecraft was launched using the Long March-2F carrier rocket this time. This type of launch vehicle is also the launch vehicle of our "Shenzhou" series of manned spacecraft, which has the advantage of high reliability, but in terms of its low earth orbit (LEO) carrying capacity, it is actually not much different from the configuration of Atlas-V for launching X-37B.
Long March 2F launch vehicle
This means that our reusable spacecraft should still go around in low-earth orbit and do not have the ability to carry out orbital transfer flights and transfer to high orbits. The U.S. military's X-37B is different, it uses Musk's heavy Falcon, and the predetermined orbital altitude is geosynchronous orbit (GEO), which has more requirements for space launch capabilities, tracking and control capabilities, and reusable spacecraft on-orbit maneuvering capabilities.
Falcon Heavy launch vehicle
At the same time, judging from the OTV-7 mission of the X-37B of the US military, it is difficult to say how much peace there is in this mission and how much military is in it, after all, the US military does not shy away from saying that the launch of X-37B has the participation of the Space Force in it, and even the mission code name is two skins, the public code name is OTV-7, and the code name of the Space Force is USSF-52, which means that the X-37B flight has a considerable military purpose. According to public information, the U.S. military's mission planning for the X-37B, including testing the performance of the X-37B on a new flight trajectory, testing the perception of the space domain, and testing the radiation resistance of some of NASA's new materials, etc., needless to say, the former and the latter are basically the routine missions of the X-37B.
The core of the X-37B's mission is undoubtedly this "space domain perception capability", which includes the perception of ground targets and, of course, the perception of space targets. From the perspective of the perception of ground targets, some military powers already have situational awareness satellites in synchronous orbits, but compared with these satellites, the X-37B type has a relatively limited performance advantage, and the biggest problem lies in the perception of space targets. After all, satellites operating in geosynchronous orbits often undertake the missions of geodynamic situational awareness and global communication relay at the strategic level, and there is no doubt that they are high-value combat assets, and in the operational environment of space warfare, attacks on such high-value strategic assets will certainly become a priority task in space warfare.
However, to attack high-value strategic targets located in synchronous orbits, the task difficulty is considerable. First of all, the orbit transfer time is long, and the speed required is large, and if an ordinary killer satellite is used to attack the target satellite through orbit transfer, it may take a long time to carry out the orbit transfer maneuver, which may delay the fighter; at the same time, the use of direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons in geosynchronous orbit, or killer satellites, etc., to use violent demolition to attack the opponent's satellite, may produce a large amount of space junk. Due to the relatively limited space capacity of geosynchronous orbit, if too much space junk is generated, it may lead to a significant reduction in the orbital resources available to mankind in the future, even if the space war ends, which will have a negative impact on human civilization.
Therefore, so far, although the United States, Russia, and other countries have tested low-earth orbit anti-satellite weapons, they have been very cautious about the anti-satellite weapon tests of geosynchronous orbit satellites, especially the kinetic energy destructive tests, and so far no country has dared to carry out such tests. In contrast, the presence of the X-37B seems to provide another possibility for high-orbit anti-satellite tactics, that is, the use of on-board electronic warfare systems or EMP systems, etc., to destroy the on-board electronic equipment of high-orbit satellites, thereby incapacitating the satellite as a whole. Through this method of overcoming rigidity with softness, the tactical goal of anti-satellite can also be achieved, and at the same time, it can also ensure that a huge amount of space junk will not be generated, and after the end of the space war, high-orbit space resources can continue to be used by the victors.
So, this time the USSF-37 of the X-52B / OTV-7 mission, the most critical: on the one hand, its orbital altitude is particularly high, compared with the orbital altitude of this reusable vehicle, the high is a bit abnormal, since the high is abnormal, there must be a problem; Then the situational awareness of space vehicles can basically be equated with trying to destroy or disable space vehicles.
In this way, the X-37B's mission is undoubtedly a Black Ops mission, and there is no problem behind the surface. From this point of view, although the X-37B is inferior to our own reusable aircraft in terms of launch time, it has jumped several times. But in terms of the nature of its mission, it is more confidential than ours, it poses a greater threat to us, and it is undoubtedly more dangerous for other countries' spacecraft in space.
Chinese reusable aircraft
Compared with the X-37B, although our reusable aircraft has not yet been made public, judging from the announcement of the news, there is no doubt that our reusable aircraft still serves peaceful purposes. For example, low-orbit meteorological forecasting, earth resources exploration, disaster prevention and mitigation, etc., in this regard, the reusable vehicle operating in low orbit has much greater advantages than ordinary low-orbit satellites:
On the one hand, there is this reusable aircraft, which has a relatively large payload space and can carry modular loads. After all, taking the X-37B as an example, the current public pictures show that the back of its fuselage should have a load compartment similar to that of the Space Shuttle orbiter, which can flexibly carry different types of available loads according to the needs of this flight. For example, if the flight uses radar to map the ground, it will be equipped with a synthetic aperture radar module, and if the flight will use a camera to take pictures of the ground, it will be equipped with an optical and infrared camera module. This greatly increases the mission flexibility of this reusable vehicle and is one of the biggest performance advantages of this reusable vehicle over non-reusable satellites;
On the other hand, this kind of reusable aircraft carries more fuel and has strong orbit control capabilities. In the case of several OTV missions of the X-37B aircraft, almost every OTV mission, the X-37B has carried out multiple orbit change maneuvers, both in the orbit plane and outside the orbit plane to change the orbit inclination. This allows this reusable vehicle to flexibly adjust the orbit altitude and inclination according to the mission requirements, so as to serve different types and different nature of earth exploration tasks, which is also its advantage over satellites.
Netizen PS The same frame diagram of the launch mission between China and the United States
Thus, judging from the reusable spacecraft on the mainland and the X-37B front and rear foot launches in the United States, although both are reusable spacecraft, the nature of the missions is very different, one for peaceful purposes and the other for military purposes. We must stress that we must oppose this naked militarization of space by the United States.