China Aerospace: Mastering Spacecraft Reliability & Lunar Soil Utilization Technology

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Yuguang Yang, Chairman of the International Astronautical Federation's Space Transportation Committee.

Transcript

00:00Yang Nguguang is the chairman of the Space Transportation Committee at the International Astronautical Federation.

00:06Well, this is really an important milestone for the China Aerospace.

00:10And also, it is very important to have today's emergency launch.

00:14You see that the point is, after leaving of the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft with the Shenzhou-20 crew,

00:19and we only have a spacecraft, the Shenzhou-20, with a craft on its window.

00:24So it's not safe enough for the Shenzhou-21 crew if anything wrong happened to the space station.

00:30So we must launch this Shenzhou-22 spacecraft as soon as possible.

00:34But the conflict is that, you know, that for both the Shenzhou spaceship and the launch vehicle, Lama-2F,

00:41both are very complex spacecraft, and we need a very comprehensive test and verification procedure

00:46to ensure the safety of the launch itself.

00:50So essentially speaking, the reliability and the faster response is complete.

00:55So today's launch product, we've already mastered the very important technology

01:00that we can have the ideal and reasonable procedure to ensure both the reliability and also the faster response.

01:09So we must simplify the whole test and the verification procedure.

01:12And even the rollout from the VAP or the vehicle assembly building to the launch pad

01:16is quite different from the previous missions.

01:18Although we already have some rehearsal before, but we don't have tested in the real flight.

01:24So today, the successful launch, and together with the fast rendezvous docking

01:29to the front docking port of our Qinghong space station,

01:32prove that we've already mastered this technology.

01:35And we can ensure the safety of our astronauts only within 20 days.

01:39Think of that.

01:41And you know that with the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, with this problem,

01:45the astronauts delayed for almost half a year.

01:48And for the Starliner crew, they delayed for almost nine months.

01:52But we only need 20 days to launch another alternative space craft to our Qinghong space station.

01:57So this is an advantage of the backup and also this kind of measure on a system level.

02:05So this is really amazing thing for the China Aerospace.

02:08So huge progress has been made.

02:11In terms of the achievements of the Shenzhou 21 mission,

02:14very exciting projects underway to find ways to construct bricks out of lunar soil.

02:20How important is that to the project to actually start building some kind of infrastructure on the moon by China?

02:26Exactly. This is really another interesting point of our Shenzhou 21 space missions.

02:33You know that the Apollo program, although it is a great mission,

02:37but it taught us a lesson to keep a sustainable and a continuable space mission,

02:43especially the lunar exploration, reducing the cost will be very, very important for all of us.

02:49The Apollo program is not sustainable because it spends too much money.

02:53And for Earth, if we want to be sustainable, we must reduce the cost,

02:57especially the reducing cost for the space transportation system between the Earth and the Moon.

03:03One important measure for all of us is the on-site resource utilization.

03:07So using the reglets or the soil and rocks on the lunar surface to make bricks and make other structures

03:13will be a good choice for all of us.

03:15But you know that before we're doing that,

03:17we must master the technology to produce the bricks with the lunar soil.

03:22And you know that the condition on the lunar surface is even more crucial

03:26than the condition on our King Kong space station.

03:30On the other hand, you know that our King Kong space station is an ideal platform

03:34for testing the technologies and also if it can fit with the environment,

03:39especially the vacuum condition, the extremely high and low temperature,

03:42and also the dangerous radiation.

03:44So it shows that this time the bricks is very good and can afford this kind of environment.

03:49And I believe that in the future, we can do more of this kind of experiment

03:53to ensure that we can not only go to the moon,

03:57but also can build a base there and make the tree cheap enough

04:01for a sustainable lunar exploration and exploitation.

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