A piece of news broke out on the website of the U.S. War Zone.
This roughly means that China's reusable spacecraft has sent six mysterious objects into space.
Of course, the six mysterious objects entering space do not count, but also emit signals outward.
Because these signals are set aside for a period of time, and the transmission time is extremely short.
This made it take quite some time for American scientists who were tracking the signal to catch the source.
From these words, it is not difficult to find that the United States is very interested in China's spacecraft.
So what is this spacecraft?
Aerospace aircraft, when it comes to these four words, many people will directly associate it with the space shuttle, but in fact, this spacecraft is two different aircraft.
Let's start by explaining the difference between a space plane and a space shuttle.
Space planes and space shuttles.
There is a difference between the space plane and the space shuttle in terms of the way they are launched.
For example, the space shuttle, which is a kind of aircraft that is tied to a rocket and needs to be launched into space, and it is difficult to move an inch without the rocket.
Aerospace planes are different.
It can take off directly at an ordinary airport, fly directly to a predetermined orbit with the goods carried, and release the carrying, such as satellites, space cabins, etc.
Not only can it be released, but it can also be grabbed, such as an abandoned satellite, a useless spacecraft, and even the destruction of some good spacecraft can be done.
The return is also simple, you can land on the runway directly like an ordinary plane, and even some abandoned runways, after a simple trimming, you can also land.
So the space plane is not as delicate as the space shuttle.
If you dig deeper into this performance, if you encounter war, the aerospace aircraft can take off and land anywhere without being bound by the environment.
Then there is the recycling of parts.
Many people have the impression that the space shuttle goes into space and then flies back, and it feels like the entire space shuttle can be recycled, but in fact, it is not, and only partially reused.
In addition to the propellant consumed, all parts of the aerospace aircraft can be reused.
What does this mean?
Provincial 钱!
Musk is constantly trying to recycle rockets, with the same purpose, to reduce the cost of launches.
As long as the aerospace plane is built, it can be reused, so the launch cost of the aerospace plane is only one-tenth of that of the space shuttle.
As the pioneer of aerospace aircraft, the United States has made strict calculations about saving money.
For example, the United States has calculated that it will cost $11,607 to send one kilogram of goods into Earth orbit with a space shuttle.
The use of aerospace aircraft for transportation, the freight cost of one kilogram is only more than 1,000 US dollars at most, so a comparison, you know the difference.
The most important thing is that the price of this compression is not the lowest, and the lowest can even drop to the extent of more than 100 dollars to transport a kilogram.
It's pretty scary.
Recall that the space shuttle was built by the United States alone, two of which were wrecked, and 14 of them were taken away along with the astronauts.
Therefore, the space shuttle and the space plane are incomparable, both in terms of economic value and safety value.
Next, let's talk about aerospace aircraft.
In fact, as early as the 80s of the last century, American aerospace scientists began to ponder the aerospace plane.
At this point in time, the use of the space shuttle is not far away.
So what was the concept of the aerospace aircraft at that time?
The aerospace plane is a hybrid of the aviation plane and the space shuttle, and two engines are installed on the aerospace aircraft, one is an aero engine.
In this way, the aerospace aircraft can take off on the runway and fly inside the atmosphere like ordinary aircraft, and in the process, the operation methods of the aviation aircraft are used.
Another type of engine is a rocket engine.
This engine is to give the space plane the ability to fly outside the atmosphere, and it is to fly according to the flight mode and operation method of the space shuttle.
Speaking of which, many people have a question.
Is it worth the trouble? Isn't it the end of using a rocket engine to lift off?
One of the biggest benefits of this is that the engine needs oxygen as an oxidizer to ignite the propellant.
If an aero engine is used, oxygen in the air can be used as an oxidizer in the atmosphere, thus greatly reducing the weight of the reserve oxidizer in the aircraft.
Taking a rocket as an example, rocket fuel accounts for more than 15/16 of the weight of the entire rocket, so it is very important for an aerospace aircraft to reduce a part of the fuel.
Moreover, the reduction of the oxidizer can not only reduce the weight of the aerospace aircraft, but also reduce the volume of the aerospace aircraft.
Then the advantage is that it can take off horizontally like a normal airplane.
It must be emphasized here that the auxiliary equipment required for vertical take-off is not only numerous, but also complex.
And horizontal take-off, just one runway is needed.
Therefore, the aerospace plane is a kind of aircraft that can fly in the atmosphere if it wants to fly in the atmosphere, and fly outside the atmosphere if it wants to fly outside the atmosphere, and can be adjusted at any time.
As soon as the concept of aerospace aircraft was proposed, it caused a sensation in many countries, and in the eighties of the last century, aerospace aircraft were an iconic word in the aerospace world.
Many countries have put forward their own proposals, the most famous of which are the British Hotol, the American Orient Express, and the German Sanger plan.
How so?
This concept was proposed too early compared to the technology of the time, which was not enough to complete such a complex spacecraft.
Therefore, after the launch of the aerospace aircraft programs of various countries for a period of time, they were discontinued.
A brief introduction to these types of aerospace aircraft
Germany's Sanger Scheme.
Strictly speaking, Germany is the homeland of aerospace aircraft, and as early as 1943, German engineers proposed the idea of using rockets to propel the globe-bomber.
The engineer's name is Sanger, and in 1967, according to Sanger's suggestion, Germany began to study the secondary space transportation system.
In 1985, in order to have a place in European space delivery technology, Germany proposed a more convenient space plane program than the British Hotor program.
In honor of Sanger, the space plane of this program was named Sanger.
So that's how the German Sanger plan came about.
The Sanger scheme uses a two-stage orbital approach, with the first stage being a super-large supersonic aircraft and the second stage being an orbiter, which can carry its own liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
First of all, the Sanger can take off from an ordinary airport, the first stage is dragged into the air with the second stage, and when the speed reaches 2,200 meters per second and the altitude is stable at 37 kilometers, the first and second stages are separated.
The second stage is propelled into orbit by a rocket engine.
This second-level technology can relatively reduce the difficulty of the production of aerospace aircraft, first of all, the first-stage part can be replaced by the hypersonic intercontinental airliner at that time.
Therefore, the overall technical risk is not large, and the cost is also low, and the cost of each flight can be controlled between 15 million US dollars and 20 million US dollars, and six launches can be carried out in a year.
However, at that time, the attitude towards Germany in Europe had changed significantly, so the plan was cancelled.
The British Hotol Scheme.
This scheme uses a single stage into orbit, similar to the concept of today's aerospace aircraft.
With the appearance of an ordinary aircraft, it can be completely reused, using four air-breathing engines during takeoff, when the speed reaches five times the speed of sound, and when it is 26 kilometers above the ground, it can enter the rocket engine mode, push directly into orbit, and enter low-earth orbit 200 kilometers above the ground.
The concept was developed by British Space in 1982.
In 1984, at the World Air Show, Britain also pushed out the model of this aircraft, which attracted the attention of many scientists in related fields.
It was not until 1987 that the theoretical research and argumentation ended.
The biggest key technology of this aerospace aircraft is the engine, which was designed by Rolls-Royce and is a single-body engine with the characteristics of an engine and a rocket engine.
That is to say, an engine has two modes of aerospace and aviation.
The idea was good, but the technical aspects were so limited that the plan was eventually abandoned in 1988.
By 1991, there was a cooperation with the Soviet Union, using a two-stage launch method of the aerospace aircraft program, the same principle as the German Sanger.
However, this cooperation has not been heard from since.
In fact, Britain has never given up on aerospace aircraft, and later with the Stratosphere Tower program, the experiment was very successful.
The Stratosphere Tower also became the world's first transporter with a hybrid engine.
During the initial flight phase, it is possible to inhale oxygen from the atmosphere and burn a mixture of liquid hydrogen, and when it reaches an altitude of 26 km, it can reach five times the speed of sound, and enter the rocket mode of work, which begins to consume its own oxygen and hydrogen.
Of course, the tower has not yet entered the stage of practical application, but the final purpose is to carry people and goods and launch satellites.
It is said that it can carry 30 people, and each launch costs less than 10 million dollars.
You must know that a rocket launch is 50 million dollars, and the space shuttle is 40 to 500 million dollars.
The Orient Express in the United States is more dramatic.
In 1981, five agencies came up with the plan, one of which was the Star Wars program, and it was quickly approved.
Then in 1986, a week after the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger, Reagan signed off on the U.S. space program, and the Orient Express program was officially launched.
First five companies were involved, an order contract was signed, and then two formulas signed a design contract for the engine and engine integration.
By 1987, the Orient Express Program Management Office had a review of the engine's concept.
This was followed by a review of the body, followed by the signing of contracts with three companies.
It is expected that a decision on whether to produce the test machine will be available by the end of 1990.
And then? Of course, it was a miscarriage, and the time was 1993.
So it can be said that the American aerospace aircraft remained on paper for the last century.
However, in 2019, without any news from the outside world, the United States built an aerospace plane and flew it five times.
The result was 780 days of orbiting the Earth, what did the plane do in such a long time?
So far, the US Air Force has not revealed a single word.
Of course, there is still a little bit of data.
It's a bit like a miniature version of the space shuttle, only a quarter the size of the shuttle, and it's unmanned.
But the speed can be up to twenty-five times the speed of sound, and the load capacity reaches two tons.
It can use a sky robotic arm, has the function of a military satellite, and can also carry weapon systems.
As for China's aerospace aircraft, it is only reported that in 2018, at the 4th China International Commercial Aerospace Summit Forum held in Wuhan, the person in charge of the Third Academy of Aerospace Science and Industry Group said something like this:
China recently completed the flight test of Tengfei 1, and successfully completed the flight verification of the core key technology "Combined Power Mode Conversion".
It's 2024 now, and the time is not too short, and it should have an effect.
So there is the scene at the beginning of the article.
Someone is sour!