Adjust font size:

Beijing News:

An important characteristic of the task this time is its comparatively long duration. Particularly in September, the third rendezvous and docking will be carried out. So, my question is: What challenges will the task meet in the aspect of monitoring and control? And is there any new technological breakthrough in this regard? Thank you.

Sun Jun:

I think there are three big challenges in the aspect of monitoring and control.

First, the task is a lengthy one. The long duration means the flight plan is more complicated than previous rendezvous and docking missions, and we have to undertake more tasks to verify the key technology in the space station stage. The entire time span will be five months, including two months of combined flight and three months of independent flight. In addition, a number of orbital scientific experiments will be conducted. It should be said that, the difficulty of task organization and implementation is still relatively large.

Second, comparatively big changes also occurred in the rendezvous and docking flight plan this time. In previous rendezvous and docking tasks, including those related to manned flights, we adopted the fixed rendezvous and docking plan which could be completed within two days. According to the requirements of the future space station, and because we will not control the huge space station for orbital maneuvering and phase adjustment, the cargo spacecraft needs to have rendezvous and docking capabilities at any phase angle. The cargo spacecraft flight plan this time has underwent significant change, in which the rendezvous and docking could be conducted by adopting two-, three-, four-, and five-day plans. So, there is a dynamic change in the rendezvous and docking plan, which is a completely new challenge.

Third, for the first time we carried out the task of in-orbit propellant refueling. We successfully completed the test yesterday, despite of the fact it was a very complicated task. The whole process of propellant refueling was divided into 29 steps in five stages, and lasted a total of five days.

So, the situation creates a very high requirement for ground control. We have made a series of breakthroughs in the following aspects.

First, in terms of the task organization and management, we optimized the flight control model under conditions of long duration. In the past, we adopted the method that each individual experimental team and individual system received flight control support from the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center. This time, taking into account the long duration of the task and, at the same time, providing experiences for future long-term management and control of space stations, we made a plan combining centralized and distributed flight control modes and corresponding systems. In the future, relevant experimental units can work in the remote support center to complete the flight control task in cooperation with us.

Second, aiming at the design of dynamic rendezvous and docking, we made a breakthrough in researching and developing the key technologies involving dynamic launch window calculation, multi-day rendezvous mode design and long-cycle, high-precision orbit forecasting to solve the problems in rendezvous and docking schemes spread over several days.

Third, aiming at the requirement of propellant refueling control, we made a breakthrough in ground coordination control technology, designed the collaborative control technology scheme, researched and developed the propellant refueling ground monitoring software, fault diagnosis software and visual monitoring software.

In addition, we also organized experts in all systems to establish a professional team for propellant refueling support. We made clear the monitoring report and the key decision-making points so as to ensure our entire propellant refueling process went through smoothly and successfully. Thank you.

Print E-mail

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)

Add your comments...

• User Name Required
• Your Comment
• Enter the words you see:    
  Racist, abusive and off-topic comments may be removed by the moderator.