The team leader of the Long March-2F launch vehicle (hereinafter referred to as the "Long March-2F rocket") once said to the fault detection and processing system team, "I very much look forward to your meritorious service, but I hope that you will never play a role." "Because once the fault detection and handling system is activated, it means that the life safety of astronauts has been threatened.
The Chang-2F rocket, developed by the First Academy of the Aerospace Science and Technology Group, is not only the mainland's first manned carrier rocket, but also the only manned carrier rocket in service on the mainland. Therefore, the developers designed a unique fault detection and processing system for the Chang-2F rocket. When the rocket has a catastrophic failure, the fault detection and processing system will send escape instructions and flight termination instructions to the relevant systems, and take the astronauts to escape from danger in time.
Since 1999, when the Chang-2F rocket successfully carried out the Shenzhou-1 manned mission, the Chang-2F rocket has maintained a 100% launch success rate in the past 25 years. Although the fault detection and handling system has never been activated, a lot of unknown work has been done on a "hidden" front, just to allow the astronauts to return safely at the last moment.
"The goal we strive for is to never use it"
"The goal we strive for is to never use it." Huang Chen of the First Hospital said that in order to be foolproof when it was put into use, they had to do enough testing work on the ground to find out potential risks as much as possible.
At about 5 p.m. on April 25, the fault detection and processing team began to prepare for the pre-launch state of the rocket, which was converted from ground power supply to rocket battery power supply. "In the past, the battery interface on each arrow involved small parts such as nuts and gaskets when disassembling and assembling, and the operator needed to complete 4 times of disassembly and assembly, which was not only difficult to operate, but also had the risk of falling excess objects during operation." Huang Chen explained that directly below the battery interface is the intersection interface between the spacecraft and the space station, and once it falls into the redundancy, it is a major accident.
In this mission, the Chang-2F rocket team optimized the technical status of this operation. "In the past, the connection method of the battery stud nut on the arrow has been replaced by a plug connection. Not only is safety guaranteed, but the operation time is also reduced from 1 hour to 3~5 minutes, which improves work efficiency. Huang Chen said.
At the end of 2014, Huang Chen joined the Chang 2F rocket team. At that time, although Huang Chen had accumulated work experience in many models, he still described himself as a "primary school student" when he recalled himself at that time. "In the Chang 2F rocket team, it is impossible to overstate how to repeatedly check and confirm it." Huang Chen said frankly that after performing a manned launch mission, it was like taking the college entrance examination again, and it was the kind of exhaustion after preparing for the war with all his might.
In the past 10 years, Huang Chen's fault detection and processing system has also undergone many changes. He recalls working when he first joined the team, "At that time, before launch, it was completely manual to modify the flight software code to enter escape data. One person reads the data, one person enters the data, one person checks the data, and then starts all over again. He said that people will always make mistakes, and once there is a data input error, resulting in a misjudgment of the system, resulting in a rocket escape vehicle that accidentally escapes or misses, all efforts will be in vain.
In 2021, Huang Chen and others began to develop automation tool software. Over the next two years, they began to introduce automation tools into their tasks, and re-verified the reliability of the software by operating in parallel with automatic input and manual proofreading. "In this mission, we left the escape data entry to the automation software." Huang Chen said that the work that used to take 2~3 days can now be completed in 5~10 minutes, which not only greatly improves efficiency, but also reduces the impact of "human" mistakes.
"I hope this regret will continue"
The strict style of the Changer F rocket team, Huang Chen never adapted to it to go deep into the bone marrow. During the conversation, Huang Chen showed reporters his travel strategy, which is a three-day schedule from Beijing to Xi'an. It records in detail the mode of travel, the detailed location of each destination, the arrival time, the distance kilometers, the cost of taking a taxi, the hotel check-in and the attractions to check in...... He said with a smile that he has changed a lot since joining the Chang 2F team. And this recognition and obedience to strictness was also passed on to his apprentices.
When the "apprentice" Xin Ruoming first joined the work, he served as a study post for the Shenzhou 15 manned launch mission. At the end of 2022, there was a sudden heavy snowfall at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and in order to ensure that the rocket was in good condition, each subsystem braved the heavy snow overnight to go to the tower to confirm the status of the rocket. That "snow" experience made Xin Ruoming deeply feel the cohesion of the Changer F rocket team, "Everyone is thinking about your safety, and you must also be responsible for the team."
Today, Xin Ruoming has further grown in his work and has a deeper understanding of manned spaceflight. "For the manned cause, the Chang-2F rocket team has a unique team cohesion. Many people have worked all their lives and are reluctant to leave. He explained that the joy of carrying out a manned mission is unique, mixed with an indescribable sense of mission and honor.
"Countdown to 15 minutes to prepare." Command hall voice commands. At this moment, the rocket already has the ability to escape. Through the glass window at the left rear of the command hall, you can see that the fault detection and handling team is working intensively. After ignition, assuming that the rocket fails, the fault detection and processing system will automatically interpret and select different escape processing modes according to the current flight period, so as to escape safely with the astronauts.
At 20:59, the Chang-2F rocket successfully ignited and took off, jumping into the sky with 3 astronauts. Soon after, the good news came from the hall of accusations that the mission had been successful, which also meant that the fault detection and handling system was once again not "useful". Huang Chen said to reporters with a smile: "I hope this regret will continue to be maintained." ”
Source: China Aerospace News