Recently, the low-altitude demonstration of the Long March 10 launch vehicle system and the maximum dynamic pressure escape flight test of the Mengzhou manned spacecraft system were successful, marking an important breakthrough in the development of my country's manned lunar exploration project.Different from the classic model of Shenzhou spacecraft in which "the rocket is responsible for escape and the spacecraft is responsible for rescue", the Mengzhou manned spacecraft system assumes the escape flight function and is fully responsible for both escape and rescue tasks. The rocket is only responsible for fault detection and alarm, and the spacecraft has its own escape tower to complete escape maneuvers independently.
The test process was highly compact. The ship-rocket assembly was launched for 65 seconds and when the rocket rose to about 11 kilometers, it reached the maximum dynamic pressure condition of 27 kilopascals and sent out an escape signal.
The spacecraft must process dozens of instructions in one second to prepare for escape.
Experts from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation revealed the difficulty of the mission in a CCTV news program. The first step is to separate the escape vehicle and the rocket. The duration of the entire separation process should be on the order of hundreds of milliseconds.
They will ignite the escape tower engine, and the entire escape main engine will work for about 10 seconds, which can quickly move the escape vehicle with the return capsule away from the rocket.
After the escape main engine is finished working, the attitude control engine continues to work, controlling the spacecraft to achieve a 180-degree maneuverable U-turn, and adjust the escape tower forward to the return capsule forward to facilitate the subsequent parachute landing of the return capsule.
To this end, the control system controls the escape attitude control engine through real-time commands to provide any direction and any amount of thrust required for ballistic control.
After the escape tower and the return capsule are separated, the return capsule still has an upward speed, and the ballistic trajectory will continue to rise. It will eventually glide to an altitude of about 20 kilometers, and then the return capsule will descend.
The return capsule will be controlled autonomously and adjust the appropriate attitude.
When the Mengzhou spacecraft's return capsule descended to an altitude of about 8 kilometers above the ground, it first opened the deceleration parachute to quickly decelerate, and then opened the three main parachutes at the same time to steadily descend. After the spacecraft landed in the sea, the landing site system completed the search and rescue.
From the beginning of the escape to the time it fell into the sea, the maximum dynamic pressure escape test flight time of the spacecraft lasted about 13 minutes.
Experts emphasize that as long as the parachute can be opened, the mission is 99% successful. The previous flight functions are all highly dynamic. As soon as you open the umbrella, everything follows a fixed sequence, which is relatively easy and reliable.
