Time： 2024-08-18
韦克威科技
The first flight of China's suborbital carrier has been successful, and its technical difficulty exceeds that of the US X37B
Recently, China's suborbital reusable demonstration and verification project carrier successfully landed in the Alxa League region, and this round of ground flight test plan was also very successful. The successful completion of the experiment immediately attracted high attention from domestic and foreign media and experts. It should be noted that the successful maiden flight of domestically produced spaceplanes will bring about a revolutionary change, and may even re-establish the "rules of the game" in the aerospace field.
You should know that in the field of aerospace, the emergence of spaceplanes is a very incredible thing. Compared to traditional target spacecraft such as space shuttles and launch vehicles, spaceplanes are not only more advanced in technology, but also more difficult to develop. At present, it is said that the aerospace aircraft developed by China has surpassed the X37B of the United States in terms of technical difficulty, and is expected to become the world's first space fighter!The most well-known aerospace aircraft is undoubtedly the X37B spacecraft, jointly developed by Boeing and NASA in the United States. It is a reusable spacecraft similar to the space shuttle. Like the space shuttle, the X37B also requires a large rocket to launch it into its predetermined orbit in space and near Earth orbit.After entering space, its own rocket engine can successfully ignite and then fly freely in low Earth orbit. After completing all missions, X37B started the rocket engine and returned to the atmosphere upon receiving ground instructions, ultimately landing successfully in autopilot mode. The reason why the X37B spaceplane has attracted much attention from the outside world is its maneuverability and speed of up to 25 Mach.According to experts, the X37B spaceplane can flexibly perform orbital maneuvers in low Earth orbit, and its maximum speed can reach more than 25 times the speed of sound, which cannot be captured by conventional military radar technology. Such excellent maneuverability also allows it to fly over any region of the world within half an hour, and any active anti missile system is "undefended" for the X37B.The most crucial thing is that the X37B spaceplane has a payload of 450 kilograms and can carry various equipment, including robotic arms. Russian experts even believe that the X37B spaceplane can carry high-energy laser weapons and pulse weapons, transforming into an aerospace fighter. During special periods, it carries various weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads, and transforms into a strategic air and space fighter.But even so, the X37B spaceplane still has a huge drawback, which is that it can only rely on traditional carrier rockets for vertical launch. There is nothing wrong with using this launch method, but in special circumstances, the most fatal drawbacks are the long preparation time before launch, the need for vertical launch stands, and the inability to deploy flexibly. After all, there are only a few launch bases in the entire region, and it is difficult not to detect them.Moreover, the launch vehicles used in X37B are disposable products, so the overall cost of use is still high. Apart from performing some high-value and special tasks, they are not suitable for large-scale deployment and use. It seems that the problem that Americans are worried about is not so serious for China. There is a reason why China's aerospace plane technically exceeds the U.S. X-37B aerospace plane.Our country's aerospace aircraft is almost identical in appearance to the X37B, with a similar overall aerodynamic layout, but there are fundamental differences in the overall flight mode. It is reported that the entire flight process of domestically produced aerospace aircraft is divided into three stages. In the first stage, the aerospace aircraft is combined with a carrier aircraft. The carrier aircraft starts its own installed engine on the ground, and the engine gradually accelerates until it reaches a hypersonic state of over 10 Mach, entering the second stage.Unlike the first stage, when the carrier aircraft and the spaceplane reach the predetermined altitude and flight speed at the edge of the atmosphere, they undergo technical separation. Then the spaceplane engine ignites, utilizing the kinetic acceleration provided by the latter to break free from gravitational constraints, and finally enters the predetermined orbit to begin executing the flight mission. The operational aircraft that completes the transportation task gradually adjusts its flight attitude and slowly returns to the airport runway for landing.
The principle of the two is essentially the same, except that here the disposable carrier rocket used by Americans is launched and transported, while China uses reusable sub orbital carrier aircraft for launch. The advantage of the former is relatively low technical difficulty, while the disadvantage is high cost and poor flexibility. The advantages of the latter are maneuverability, short preparation time, and low operating costs, but the disadvantage is that it is technically difficult. Generally, these reusable suborbital launch vehicles use a combined cycle engine, which is a power system device consisting of a turbojet engine, a ramjet engine, and a rocket engine. This can enable the carrier to carry out launch missions on the airport runway, with a much lower possibility of being limited by weather, environment, and time conditions.
As early as 2019, China successfully completed the ignition and mode conversion tests of a turbofan assisted rocket enhanced ramjet combined cycle engine, which is much more advanced than the new turbofan+rocket engine combined power system technology developed by Boeing in the United States. The most environmentally friendly thing is that this new combination engine can enable aerospace aircraft to achieve single-stage orbit insertion. In early 2020, China successfully completed a two-stage orbital spacecraft free separation test inside a wind tunnel, and the two-stage parallel spacecraft was successfully separated. The success of this experiment has also laid a solid foundation for the development of domestic aerospace and carrier aircraft in the future.In 9 years, that is, in 2030, China's Tengyun program will officially begin the verification flight of secondary orbital technology. This means that China is expected to lead the United States and become the first country in the world to put spaceplanes, or even spacefighters, into use, achieving the first technological leadership in the aerospace field.Source: Guoke Huanyu
