In the early morning of May 10, China successfully launched the Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft by using the Long March 7 remote 5 carrier rocket at the Wenchang space launch site in Hainan, and successfully docked with the core module of the space station after about 6.5 hours by using the rapid rendezvous and docking technology. This marks the complete success of the first launch mission of China's space station construction mission in 2022.
Dang Rong, deputy chief designer of Tianzhou cargo spacecraft system of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and technology group, said in an interview with the global times that as the first spacecraft in the construction stage of China's space station, the successful launch and smooth docking of Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft marks the official opening of the curtain of the comprehensive construction stage of China's space station, which will lay a foundation for steadily promoting the engineering tasks of China's space station and building a national space laboratory.
Tianzhou cargo spacecraft is the exclusive spacecraft for logistics supply of China's space station. It is known as the "express brother" of China's space station. In this mission, the tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft carried a total of more than 200 pieces (sets) of goods, including package goods and direct installation goods, including astronaut system, space station system, space application field and cargo spacecraft system. It also carried about 750 kg of supplementary propellant and 6000 kg of uplink materials. It will stay in orbit for six months for three astronauts of shenzhou-14, assemble and build the space station, and carry out material science Provide material support for space application fields such as microgravity and aerospace medical experiments.
According to the reporter of the global times, the largest proportion of the goods brought to heaven by Tianzhou 4 this time is the astronauts' living materials, most of which are food. The food sent to heaven by Tianzhou 4 was also adjusted according to the previous feedback of the astronauts' crew, and the variety of vegetables was increased to 32. At the same time, the ground staff also prepared three special foods for the astronauts: Festival food, reward food and "blind box" food. Among them, the festival food is prepared for the Shenzhou 14 flight crew to spend the Mid Autumn Festival, winter solstice and other festivals in space; Reward food is prepared for "rewarding" astronauts after completing major tasks such as extravehicular activities; "Blind box" food is customized for special nodes such as astronauts' birthday in space.
Wang Chunhui, chief engineer of the tianzhou-4 launch mission test team of China Astronaut Research and training center, said that reward food and "blind box" food are the favorite food of astronauts. These small "surprises" are also conducive to regulating the psychological state of astronauts' long-term stay in orbit.
In addition, more than ten products, such as calcium removal components and urine filter components, developed by the 206 Institute of the second Academy of Aerospace Science and industry, are also carried aboard the Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft. It is understood that this batch of spare parts will be used as consumables for the normal operation of the environmental control, health and urine treatment subsystem of the space station. Subsequently, the Shenzhou 14 crew will launch into orbit and carry out routine maintenance on the urine treatment subsystem, replacing consumables such as calcium removal components, urine filter components and lubricating water bag components.
Dang Rong said that the status of Tianzhou series cargo spacecraft from No. 2 to No. 5 is not completely consistent. Among them, the Tianzhou 3 and 4 cargo spacecraft adopt a one-layer storage tank, which can carry 750 kg of supplementary propellant; The Tianzhou II and the Tianzhou V cargo spacecraft to be launched in the next step are two-layer storage tanks, which can provide more supplementary propellant for the space station. The previous Tianzhou II cargo spacecraft can carry 3 tons of supplementary propellant.
In order to ensure the safe express delivery of goods to "space house", Tianzhou 4 adopts various cargo loading methods such as cargo package, support and storage box. The type and quantity of goods can be dynamically configured according to the needs of the space station; At the same time, it also has the ability to undertake space station operation support tasks such as attitude and orbit control, grid connected power supply, space station telemetry and data transmission support, as well as space science experiment support.
As the general research and development unit of the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft system, the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group also adheres to the people-oriented concept in the spacecraft development process, and continuously improves and optimizes the cargo spacecraft according to the on orbit use opinions of the astronaut crew. "After the three astronauts of the Shenzhou 12 crew came back, we improved the color of the cargo package in the cargo hold through conversation with them. When Tianzhou 2 went up, we mainly identified the cargo by the label outside the cargo package. Although there was an intelligent cargo management system, the astronauts still couldn't see which system cargo was in the shipment package at a glance. Therefore, after Tianzhou 3, we adopted the label and handle of the cargo Color identification, so that we can intuitively see which system goods are, and it is more convenient and efficient to find goods, "Dang Rong said.