With the rapid development of private aerospace represented by Musk SpaceX, the pace of ordinary people participating in aerospace is accelerating, with the further support and opening up of the country, China's commercial aerospace is also booming, struggling to catch up, the birth of Blue Arrow Aerospace, Zhongke Aerospace and other private rocket companies, now, private spacecraft companies are about to come out, maybe in our lifetime really have the opportunity to go to space, space tourism, not far from us......
China's first spaceship ticket sold
"Last month, I signed my first ticket to space, and China's first commercial astronaut, the Traveler 001 space tourist, was born. On behalf of China's commercial manned spacecraft, the Traveler signed the historic first ticket! Lei Shiqing, founder and CEO of Beijing Traveler Manned Space Technology Co., Ltd., shared.
Regarding the Chinese market, Lei Shiqing said, “Based on the technical strength of the national team, the entire team of Traverser is comprehensive, with a strong integration of national aerospace and commercial aerospace experience, a combination of hard power and soft power, a combination of youthful vitality and solid stability. At the same time, it will be possible for ordinary people in China to go to space within five years.”
Lei Shiqing's daring to think and act is based on the rapid development of China's commercial aerospace. The mass production and industrialization of satellite production have made the supply chain of commercial aerospace more complete and the cost lower and lower. Commercial rockets are experiencing a blowout development. The reusable rocket is expected to be officially put into use in the next 3 to 4 years, which will exactly match the development pace of the reusable spacecraft of the time traveler. By then, the ship and arrow will be integrated, making it possible for ordinary people to dream of traveling through space. Therefore, current development Commercial airships have their moment.
Whether it is national or private space exploration missions, private space tourism, or the transportation of scientific experiments, public welfare promotion, or even future fixed-point intercontinental transportation and the development of the earth-lunar economy, facing the future of large-scale, low-cost, short-term To meet the periodic launch requirements, reusable commercial manned spacecraft urgently need to be developed.
China's 100% success rate in manned spaceflight over the past 30 years and the successful reusable test of China's new generation manned spacecraft for future manned moon landings in 2020 have become important foundations for the development of commercial manned spacecraft.
Challenges and opportunities: suborbital reusable commercial manned spacecraft
The Traveler has developed a "three-step" technological development route, the first step is to realize the development of a suborbital reusable manned spacecraft in the 3rd and 4th years; The second step is to realize the development of a reusable manned spacecraft in orbit in the 6th and 7th years; The third step is to achieve the rendezvous and docking of the target aircraft in the 9th to 10th year. As the company's first aircraft model, the CYZ1 suborbital manned spacecraft undertook the important historical mission of opening up the commercial space tourism market, so its design scheme should strive to maximize comfort and intelligence on the basis of safety and reliability, minimize costs, and achieve it as quickly as possible.
"The overall design of the aircraft, aerodynamics first", the aerodynamic configuration is the most important design parameter of the spacecraft, which determines the aerodynamic characteristics and technical routes of the spacecraft flying in the atmosphere, and also determines the overweight level of tourists during the return process, which affects the safety and comfort.
Internationally, the aerodynamic shape of the manned spacecraft is mainly divided into two kinds, one is the lifting body (lifting body), the application represents the space shuttle and the Virgin Galactic spaceship, but due to the technical difficulty of this configuration, and the escape system can not be configured, there are congenital inherent defects, research and development costs and post-flight maintenance costs are very high, so the space shuttle was retired in 2010, and the cockpit of Virgin Galactic needs to be equipped with 2 professional pilots each time, and the flight altitude can only reach 80 kilometers, safety, structural efficiency, floor area ratio, and technical scalability are not as good as blunt heads; Blunt body is the current international mainstream manned spacecraft configuration, with sophisticated technology, high safety performance, controllable maintenance costs, based on the domestic research and development foundation, the blunt body configuration is selected to have a shorter development cycle and is more suitable for commercial landing.
However, due to the fact that the speed of suborbital flight is low, and the aerodynamic force during the return process is about 1/4 of that of near-Earth flight, how to design a blunt-headed spacecraft with greater lift to effectively control the landing site is a difficult problem that needs to be broken through.
Commercial space tourism requires a highly secure and reliable escape and emergency rescue system, which is one of the biggest differences between manned spacecraft and unmanned spacecraft, which requires the spacecraft to quickly and autonomously separate from the rocket and return to the ground in the event of a rocket failure to ensure the safety of tourists. This is a complex problem closely related to rocket trajectory, explosive stamping, aerodynamics, landing area, etc., and it has always been the core problem of manned spaceflight. The Shenzhou spacecraft, the Orion manned spacecraft of the United States, and the manned spacecraft of the Russian Soyuz all use the escape tower to escape by dragging, which is relatively mature in technology, and the disadvantage is that the escape tower cannot be reused, and the cost of a single launch is high. The traverser adopts the most advanced escape method in the world - the bottom of the spacecraft pushes self-escape, the engine can be reused after recovery with the return capsule, the system scheme is better, the cost is low, it is the best scheme for the blunt manned spacecraft at present, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft and Blue Origin's Shepard spacecraft are in this form.
For commercial spacecraft, it is necessary not only to realize the reusability of escape engines, but also to design the structure, electronic equipment, parachutes, etc. for reusability, and to overcome non-destructive rapid detection technology, and finally realize flight-based operation. This requires the design of the spacecraft in the process of flight and landing, the high temperature, atmospheric friction, aerodynamic pressure, re-entry overload, separation and landing impact and other environments to try to make it more stable and controlled, which is a very big challenge.
In Lei Shiqing's view, the development of the environmental control and health protection system and the complex human factors engineering technology to achieve a people-oriented, space-centered all-round layout are the most important features of commercial flight compared with traditional spacecraft, and they are also the characteristics of the traverser spacecraft. In addition, the AI-based human-computer interaction and integrated electronic integrated autonomous control technology of the traverser allows the spacecraft to have an efficient human-computer interaction management system, which improves the safety, convenience, comfort and artistry of passengers during the flight. The design of the new spacesuit will also use flexible electronic intelligent sensing technology to be coupled with the spacecraft to realize the intelligent monitoring and evaluation of the passenger's health status, which not only solves the problem of bloated spacesuit and inconvenient mobility, but also achieves accurate sensing and collects a variety of data of passengers, including emotional state, if any discomfort of passengers is monitored, automatic and accurate intervention can be carried out to ensure passenger safety and emotional stability.
Based on the breakthroughs in the above core and key technologies, the "Voyager One" (CYZ1) has a more eye-catching design and breakthrough compared with the Blue Origin "Shepard" spacecraft. The spacecraft is designed to carry 7 passengers, with a maximum diameter of 4.3 meters, compared to the 15 cubic meters of space of the Shepard, the space of the traverser of 25 cubic meters is more spacious and comfortable, in order to provide passengers with a better visual experience, the porthole of the traverser will also catch up with the current blue origin of 1.07 meters X0.7 meters of the maximum porthole size, and at the same time, the landing accuracy is also accurate from the blue source 10-20 kilometers to 100 meters, the reusability rate is higher, and will bring a more comfortable, richer, longer flight experience, The flight time will be increased from 11 minutes at Blue Origin to almost 30 minutes.
Commercialization of manned spaceflight
Through the establishment of the Space Traveler Club, the Traveler will create a platform for high-net-worth individuals to communicate and interact, so as to drive the participation of three major groups of people.
The first category, tourists who book ferry tickets, after signing the pre-sale contract, will automatically become members of the club, and the passengers will be trained before going to space, professional medical supervision and medical insurance, professional training in simulation cabins, and a full range of aerospace special medical examinations. In the second category, value-added service buyers, the traverser will provide customized aerospace health care and training value-added services, including health management, health training and health rating of aerospace-grade doctors, promote the transformation of excellent scientific and technological achievements of aerospace medicine and health to the public, and will also provide value-added services for the world's exclusive aerospace activities. The third type of young geeks, the traverser plan to extract some astronaut training programs for commercial promotion, such as survival in the wild, emergency escape, weightless aircraft, centrifuges, etc., through such activities to promote new activities. Therefore, the business income model of the traverser includes the income of ferry tickets, the income from the sale of spacecraft, the income of club membership, the income of customized aerospace health care and training value-added services, and the income from commercial advertising and experiments.
As a pioneer in the field of commercial manned spaceflight, the Traveler has taken the lead in signing the first commercial space tourist and received the deposit.
"The space flight you have booked will take about 30 minutes, and the spacecraft will cross the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km, at which point you will experience no less than 3 minutes of weightlessness in levitation. At the same time, you can overlook the beautiful earth home from a new perspective, enjoy the magnificent arc of the earth, immerse yourself in the vast cosmic space, and enjoy the ultimate space flight experience. (Article from 36 Krypton)