The Chinese space plane test of 16 July 2021: orbital, not suborbital?

click map to enlarge

 

In my previous post I debated at length a claim by the Financial Times on October 16 that China recently did a FOBS test. This claim seems to be currently disintegrating, as suspicion is rising (following rebuttal comments by a Chinese Government offcial) that it all seems to refer to a Chinese reusable Space Plane test flight on July 16 instead. A test flight which was already reported earlier and hence known.

At the time when that Chinese Space Plane test flight was reported in July, it was reported as having been suborbital. This was (I think) mostly based on the proximity of the reported launch site (Jiuquan) and landing site (Badanjilin Airport), which are only some 220 km apart (indicating a short suborbital "hop").

But I now think that judgement was in error. 

If the whole FOBS-story indeed actually refers to the July 16 test flight, then it seems that it was orbital, completing one revolution.

Indeed, upon looking into it and trying some orbital scenario's, I found that a launch from Jiuquan into a 41.07 degree inclined orbit would actually very well match with a landing at Badajilin Airport at the end of one full revolution. I have depicted the resulting trajectory in the map in top of this post.

So: FOBS or space plane? Jeffrey Lewis has a point when he tweets:

"China just used a rocket to put a space plane in orbit and the space plane glided back to earth. Orbital bombardment is the same concept, except you put a nuclear weapon on the glider and don’t bother with a landing gear." - Jeffrey Lewis

But then, Mark Gubrud is likely also right about design differences when he tweets that:

"A FOBS/hypersonic missile would be optimized differently from a space plane. The plane would be designed to slow as much as possible on reentry (hence the blunt design of the Shuttle). It would have landing gear. It would have a payload bay, instead of an integral warhead."

The trajectory of the July 16 space plane flight, if my interpretation is correct, is not very FOBS-like. But this was only a test flight. Jeffrey is right that a space plane or glider in principle is suited for a deorbit with something in it's cargo bay that can go BOOM. This is why some other nations look with suspicion at the US X-37B space plane, currently on its sixth mission.

About the airport at Badanjilin: it seems to have been constructed rather recently. It is not present in Google Earth imagery from as recent as 2016. The landing strip is some 2.4 km long, oriented northwest-southeast, azimuth 313-133 degrees, and located at 39.2264 N, 101.5477 E. Below is a Copernicus Sentinel 2A image of the airport taken on 31 July 2021 (note the Camel!):

click image to enlarge

UPDATE 18 Oct 2021 19:45 UT:

Something very confusing is that, while the Chinese Government now seems to suggest that the orbital flight reported on by the Financial Times in fact was this July 16 space plane flight, Chinese news items on this space plane flight from that time seem to state that the flight was "suborbital", as Jonathan McDowell has pointed out. 

Still, I am not convinced as the word is used several times in a context where it is odd (e.g. when describing the space plane as a technology). The same in an English language bulletin by Xinhua, which also talks about a "reusable suborbital carrier". That sounds more like an aircraft to me (perhaps one launched with a booster stage and then flying through the upper atmosphere), than a space plane. I have no knowledge of the Chinese language at all (the only thing I can say in Chinese is "thank you") so do not know what is possibly lost in translation here.

Even more confusingly, the first Chinese item linked above seems to name yet another airport (so another one than that pictured above) as the landing site:  Youqi airport. I found a Youqi airport which is near 48.5764 N, 116.9377 E. The runway of that airport however seems a bit short for a space plane landing. Jonathan McDowell  thinks I got the wrong Youqi and points out that the Badanjilin Airport imaged above is also called Youqi....oh well. He probably is right (he usually is). We can use some more confusion in this already confusing case...

Both with regard to "FOBS or not", and the July 16 "space plane", many things remain very ambiguous.

It could be that the Chinese Government is now seizing on the July 16 test to explain away a later FOBS test.

China launches a 'Reusable Experimental Spacecraft' - a Space Plane? [UPDATED MULTIPLE TIMES]

Early September 2020, the space tracking community was in nervous anticipation of a rather mysterious Chinese launch. Amidst tight security measures, a Changzeng-2F (CZ-2F) rocket was readied at SLS-1 of Jiuquan's Launch Area 4. Chinese tracking ships were taking up positions near South America and in the Arabian Sea. Two NOTAM's appeared suggesting a launch between 5:20 and 6:00 UT on September 4. Something was afoot! Speculation was, that this was the long anticipated inaugural launch of a robottic Space Plane, a version of the Shenlong, China's answer to the American Air Force's X-37B robottic Space Plane.

Then, on September 4th, the Chinese news agency Xinhua published a very brief news item announcing that a CZ-2F from Jiuquan had launched a 'Reusable Experimental Spacecraft' earlier that day. 

The bulletin was scarce in information but stated that "after a period of in-orbit operation, the spacecraft will return to the scheduled landing site in China. It will test reusable technologies during its flight, providing technological support for the peaceful use of space".

No further details were given on launch time, orbit or character of the spacecraft. The description of the spacecraft is a bit ambiguous. Instead of a space plane, a 'reusable spacecraft' could in theory also be some sort of capsule (e.g. like the SpaceX Dragon): but most analysts think this indeed refers to the long rumoured space plane, China's answer to the US X-37B.

Pre-launch, and based on the positions of the hazard zones from the two NOTAM's, I calculated a launch into an orbital inclination of ~45 degrees, incidentally similar to the orbital inclination of the X-37B OTV 6 mission currently on-orbit. What's more, the launch window given (the NOTAM windows were from 5:23 to 6:05 UT) indicated the possibility of a launch into the orbital plane of OTV 6! The orbital plane of OTV 6 passed over Jiuquan at 6:00 UT - near the end of the launch window.

I published the following expected track for a launch into a 45 degree inclined orbit (which we now know is wrong):

Initial pre-launch trajectory guess. Click map to enlarge

When later that day the first orbital elements by the US military tracking network appeared on the CSpOC portal, it turned out that the orbital inclination was not ~45 degrees, but 50.2 degrees, 5 degrees higher than I anticipated. The reason for the mismatch, is that the rocket apparently did a dog-leg manoeuvre during ascend. This is very clear when we plot the orbital ground track in relation to the launch site and hazard zones from the two NOTAM's: it passes obliquely between them rather than lining up.

Actual orbital track. Click map to enlarge

 A 'dog-leg' manoeuvre is usually done for safety reasons, to avoid overflying a particular area downrange (e.g. a city or a foreign nation), but can also be done to insert the spacecraft into an orbital inclination that otherwise cannot be reached from the launch site. The latter is however not the case here - [editted] the orbital inclination is higher than the launch site latitude (you cannot reach an orbital inclination that is lower than your launch site latitude without a dog-leg, but higher you can.). So the reason must be range safety.

It is clear that the launch occurred well outside the NOTAM time window (why, is not clear). My analysis, based on a proximity analysis using the orbits of the spacecraft, the upper stage of the CZ-2F rocket, and that of four engine covers ejected upon spacecraft separation, indicate spacecraft separation and insertion into orbit around 7:41 UT on September 4th, over the Chinese coast with the orbital plane lining up with Jiuquan (see image below which depicts the orbital position at orbit insertion). The launch itself then should have occured some 8-10 minutes earlier i.e. around 7:30 UT, give or take a few minutes.

Moment of orbital insertion. click to enlarge

 

The spacecraft was inserted into a 50.2 degree inclined, initially 332 x 348 km orbit. During the hours after launch, the spacecraft made small orbital manoeuvres (see diagram below). At the time of writing (5 September 20:45 UT) it is in a 331 x 347 km orbit.

click diagram to enlarge

The later than initially expected launch time and, through a dog-leg manoeuvre, insertion into a 50.2 degree inclined orbit moved the orbital plane away from that of the X-37B OTV 6, although the two orbital planes are still near. Igor Lissov has pointed out some resemblance to the orbital plane of another US classified payload, USA 276, which has a similar orbital inclination to the Chinese spacecraft (but 50 km higher orbital altitude). The RAAN difference is 8 degrees:

click to enlarge

Based on the current orbits of all three spacecraft, there will be no close approaches of the Chinese spacecraft to either of these classified US payloads over the coming two weeks.

OTV 6 is currently in a 383 x 391, 45.0 degree inclined orbit. The difference in RAAN with respect to the Chinese spacecraft is 13.4 degrees, with a 5.2 degree difference in inclination and about 40-50 km difference in orbital altitude.

USA 276, the mysterious spacecraft that made a close approach to the ISS in May 2017 (see my July 2017 article in The Space Review), is currently in a 397 x 395, 50.0 degree inclined orbit. The difference in RAAN with respect to the Chinese spacecraft is 7.9 degrees, with a 0.2 degree difference in inclination and about 50-60 km difference in orbital altitude.

The Chinese 'reusable' spacecraft was launched from SLS-1, one of two launch platforms at Launch Area 4 of the Jiuquan Space Launch Center. Below is a Copernicus Sentinel 2B image of the launch complex, taken on September 2nd, two days before the launch. The two launch platforms are indicated: the southernmost one is the platform used for this launch.

click image to enlarge

It will be interesting to see where the 'reusable spacecraft' will eventually land. One likely candidate is a military airfield, the Dingxin Test and Training Base, that is located some 75 km southwest of the launch site. I have indicated both the launch site (A) and the potential landing site (B) in the Copernicus Sentinel 2B image below. The second image gives a more detailed look on the airbase.

Click image to enlarge

 

Click image to enlarge

We have no clue how long the spacecraft will stay in orbit. It will be interesting to see when and where it lands.

The 'reusable spacecraft' has the CSpOC catalogue entry #46389 (COSPAR ID 2020-063A). The CZ-2F upper stage is object #46390 (2020-063B). The four ejected engine covers (with apogees in the 458 to 566 km range), have numbers 46391-46394 (2020-063A to 202-063F).

UPDATE 6 Sept 2020 8:45 UT:

Xinhua reports on Sept 6 that the spacecraft has landed after 2 days on-orbit. Depending on the landing site, landing should have been (based on orbital overpass) either around 1:55 UT at Lop Nor (an alternative landing site suggested), or 6:45 UT at Dingxin Airbase.

UPDATE 2, 9:30 UT:
As the Chinese version of the Xinhua bulletin dates to an hour after the first option (1:55 UT), it seems that the landing was near 1:55 UT near Lop Nur in the Taklamakan desert (HT to Jonathan McDowell).

UPDATE 3, 10:30 UT:
This is the potential landing site, a triangular arrangement of 5 km long landing strips in the Taklamakan Desert. The orbital track of the spacecraft passed some 42.5 km northwest of it around 1:54 UT, more or less parallel to what appears to be the main landing strip:

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

UPDATE  4, 14:00 UT:
This is an updated diagram of the orbital evolution over the test flight. It seems no large manoeuvers were tried during this flight.

Click diagram to enlarge

UPDATE 5, 16:00 UT:

Jonathan McDowell noted that a new object related to the launch has been catalogued, object 2020-063G, #46395. My analysis suggests it was ejected from the experimental spacecraft near 22:25 UT on the 5th, two revolutions before landing. It likely is a cubesat of some sort. It is in a  332 x 348 km, 50.2 degree inclined orbit. (Update 8 Sept: on Twitter, Bob Christy has suggested that it might be a small inspector satellite, used to inspect the outside of the experimental spacecraft prior to deorbit)

Chinese CZ-11 rocket stage impacts Myanmar Jade quarry (updated)

On November 9 at 23:42 UT (November 10 in local time), China launched a Long March 11 (CZ-11) rocket from Jiuquan on a south-bound trajectory, lofting the XPNAV satellite into orbit.

The object (image from the Myanmar Times)

Shortly after this, an object came crashing out of the sky in Myanmar, impacting in a Jade quarry near Hmaw His Zar village near Hpakant in Kachin Province. Photographs of the object can be seen in the news stories here and  here. The image in the first link is the best in terms of showing shape and size.

The object is reportedly ~4 meter long and ~1.5 meter wide (reports differ slightly). In one of the images, it is clear that it is different in diameter at both ends, the shape being that of a barrel with a tapering segment on it.

Size and shape conforms to (what I assume is) the second stage of the CZ-11 (edit: might in fact be the 3rd stage), which is about ~4 meters long and about 2 meter diameter at one side, tapering to about 1.4 meter diameter at the other side. A drawing of the rocket's elements is here and another, perhaps more accurate rendering is here (the drawings differ somewhat, hence my confusion on whether this is the 2nd or 3rd stage. From the second rendering, it looks to be the 3rd rather than the 2nd stage).

Click map to enlarge

As can be seen in the map above, last Wednesday's Chinese launch trajectory lines up well with the reported location of the impact in Myanmar.  So it almost certainly is the 2nd (3rd?) stage of the CZ-11 rocket used for this launch.

[edit 12 Nov 2016: to be clear, the line on the map is a projection of the orbital plane of the XPNAV satellite at the moment of launch, as a proxy for the launch trajectory. You can see it lines up with both the Jiuquan launch location and the location where the object came down in Myanmar].


UPDATE: Jeffrey Lewis ("The Arms Control Wonk") pointed me to this Chinese CNTV footage about the recent launch that shows various parts of the CZ-11 rocket. From 0:35 onwards, one of the stages shown visually clearly is a match for the Myanmar objects:



Here are a few stills from the footage, compared to one of the images of the Myanmar object. The red semi-transparent boxes indicate which stage matches in terms of shape and details such as the round hole halfway the hull:

click to enlarge

(editted 12 Nov: added images and text, noted the 2nd/3rd stage potential confusion)