BBC News reports that the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft with two taikonauts has successfully docked with China's second space station (their first station, Tiangong-1, was also recently in the news, because it is dropping from orbit).
The Shenzhou-11 spacecraft blasted off from northern China on Monday, and docked with Tiangong 2 at 03:24 Beijing time (19:24 GMT Tuesday).
Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong will be spending the next 30 days in space conducting experiments.
It marks the longest space mission by Chinese astronauts.
The docking took place 393km (244 miles) above Earth and the remotely controlled procedure lasted about two hours, according to state media.
The docking took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning Beijing time.
State television on Wednesday morning carried live video of the docking and arrival of the astronauts, or "taikonauts", which saw them floating through a narrow 1m-long, 80cm-wide passageway into the lab.
The pair "extended greetings to all the people of the nation," while onboard the laboratory, according to the Xinhua news agency.
More links:
http://www.ecns.cn/2016/10-19/230722.shtml
I'm curious why they have only 2 crew this time instead of 3. Maybe they needed the extra space for the food experiments?
Related Stories
The Guardian reports on the Tianzhou-1's, China's first automated cargo spacecraft, first mission to the station:
China's first cargo spacecraft docked successfully with the Tiangong-2 space lab on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency reported, marking a major step towards Beijing's goal of establishing a permanently manned space station by 2022. ...
The Tianzhou-1 cargo resupply spacecraft made the automated docking process with the orbiting space lab after it had taken off on Thursday evening from the Wenchang satellite launch centre in the southern island province of Hainan....
The cargo spacecraft mission provides an "important technological basis" to build a Chinese space station, state media have said. It can reportedly carry six tonnes of goods, two tonnes of fuel and can fly unmanned for three months.
Seems like Cold War era again:
President Xi Jinping has prioritised advancing China's space programme to strengthen national security.,,,
The US Defense Department has highlighted China's increasing space capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed at preventing other nations from using space-based assets in a crisis.
China insists it has only peaceful ambitions in space, but has tested anti-satellite missiles.
2007 - Chinese anti-satellite missile test
1985 - American anti-satellite missile test
Chinese exclusion policy of NASA
Related: China Launched its Second "Heavenly Palace" Thursday Morning [Updated]
China's Shenzhou 11 Docks at Tiangong 2 Space Station
Space Race 2.0: China May Already be Testing an EmDrive in Orbit
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:46PM
There is no 'space', at least not in the way it is being presented by modern astronomy.
This 'space program' as it is being presented here is a hoax, with NASA being the main actor and other "space agencies" following suit.
Launches are smoke-and-mirrors events where you are not shown the actual meat (but only CGI) and the "internal" shots are shot on blue screens and "zero-g" planes, whereas the external ones are shot in a swimming pool.
The solar radiation is powerful enough to melt most metals "up in the thermosphere": for this reason alone, it is impossible for satellites to be the orbiting machines that they are supposed to be.
If you try to detect a spin and a curvature for the Earth, you will find none, never. Those "space programs" are here to help maintain the illusion of the "blue marble", spinning ball-like Earth.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:05PM
You surely also have an explanation of the things that one can sometimes see as clearly visible bright moving spot on the sky which are commonly claimed to be satellites? And can explain why they move exactly as they should move if there was indeed a space where satellites orbit?
And you probably can also tell us where the TV signals those satellite dishes receive come from when up there nothing could survive the solar radiation, right?
And about the curvature of earth, what is your explanation that you can see farther is you are higher? And that for approaching ships on the sea, you see the upper parts before you see the lower parts? And why ships (including private ships that cannot be part of some global conspiracy) which use that "wrong" spherical geometry of earth for navigation quite reliably get to where they want to get?
What is your explanation that the apparent height of the polar star over the horizon changes if you go north or south, and it gets invisible when you cross the equator southwards?
I think if you want to convince us that the earth is not (approximately) spherical and surrounded by space, you'll have to do a lot of explanations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:46PM
He'll have answers for all that and more. Numbnuts is completely hopeless. Just mod him to -1, and don't reply to him.
Well… unless numbnuts is trying to do something about the low comment counts on space stories. I'm just not sure that's a healthy solution.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:39PM
Meta: I don't have to browse at -1 to know what you two are talking about. But i'm curious when that copypasta can be marked as -1 spam? At what point does it go from bad trolling to spam?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:54PM
The admins review every spam mod. Why waste their time? And AFAICT it isn't a copypasta.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:08PM
Because at some point wasting X user mod points is more than wasting an admin's time. That was my question, what is the value of X? When does it go from wasting a bunch of people's time to actual spam.
Just like this comment has probably pushed too far into the OT and risking a negative mod there : P
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @03:19AM
I had thought that saying it isn't a copypasta was enough of an answer. If it were, I would have used the spam mod.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:34PM
Love the irony of Science Deniers using the products of science to post their opinions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:43PM
Robert Anton Wilson was only joking!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:06PM
Didn't the doctor tell you that you should take your meds every day at the same time?
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:35PM
Please explain how time zones work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:16PM
Please explain how time zones work.
Because the Sun is a more localized phenomenon, works more like a spotlight ("hotspots" have been spotted from high-altitude balloons, not consistent with a distant Sun) and is not as high as NASA and modern astronomy tells you. The Sun circles around the plane much like the hour hand circles on the surface of a clock, illuminating locally. Perspective, atmospheric attenuation and perhaps a limited range for the propagation of sunlight prevents you from seeing it all the time (same as attenuation from water keeps deep waters in perpetual darkness)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 20 2016, @12:25AM
The magic field of the Disc slows the light down.
It's explained in the reference manual [chrisjoneswriting.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fritsd on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:10PM
Then please explain satellite beam footprints: http://satbeams.com/footprints [satbeams.com]
(click on the "75°E ABS-2" icon on the line. Those diagonal tic-marks are supposed to represent TV satellites. I bet the website uses lots of Javascript.)
I can easily get the ABS-2 (75°E) Russia beam, I have watched Tajikistan TV on it. That means I have direct line-of-sight with a satellite positioned over the Maldives (hey, how cool is THAT!). As long as I push my dish almost as far diagonal as it goes.
Good reception, 41000 kilometers away. Elevation angle is 5.7° for me, according to satbeams.com.
*However*, I cannot get the Horizons 2 (85°E) at all, even though it has a much stronger beam aimed at my position (well, aimed at Russia; I get the overshoot, if you know what I mean).
Horizons 2 is 41500 kilometers away.
Satbeams.com does a complicated goniometrical calculation and claims that 85°E is at 1.3° elevation above the horizon for me, which would explain why I can't watch it.
But if, as you claim, our Earth is flat, then the elevation should change only slowly as the tangent of a very small angle, right?
Now please explain why the Russians get satellite beams from both 75°E and 85°E, but the Swedes get only from 75°E?
Any solutions? (Don't tell me to build a ginormous tower and put the dish on top of that; I've already considered that, and it was impractical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2016, @07:46PM
Beams from "satellites" originate from ground-based stations: those bounce the signal against the sky. Short-wave radio works like this, as does tropospheric scattering, and radio signals generally bounce against things which creates various possibilities for their propagation.
I also use "satellite" dishes. Never once did I have to use them by pointing them exactly south: to get a signal for my neighboring country to my east, I point my dish east and adjust the elevation until I maximize the reception lobe. However, a signal is picked up in less that one position, which is something geometrically consistent with being on a plane and reflecting waves against a ceiling.
So: receiving a signal "from above" does not prove the existence of orbiting machines; nor does a limiting angle prove a spherical shape for the Earth, as this can also occur as a condition fro a planar geometry (a limit for the incident angle small enough where crisp reflections are no longer possible, for example). And aircraft have the communication GPS bundle on their belly (that is, facing the ground, not the sky where the alleged satellites exist)
I never, ever have ever seen one of those magic, invisible, "geostationary" satellites. Nor has anybody else.
Please watch the recent launch from India's "space agency" and you will clearly see in their own footage that the payload-carrying rocket instead of acquiring escape velocity or similar, makes a stop, turns more than 90 degrees, and starts falling. How is that consistent with the launch of a geostationary satellite? That rocket should be speeding miles per seconds, not sitting around and making handbrake turns. Unless it is smoke and mirrors and balloons.
I am not convinced of this "space program". I do not know if the Earth is actually flat, but I am certainly not convinced that it is a spinning globe, with "satellites" "orbiting it".
(Score: 1) by segwonk on Friday October 28 2016, @05:07AM
"I never, ever have ever seen one of those magic, invisible, "geostationary" satellites. Nor has anybody else."
Wow. Poe's Law comes into play here. I can't tell if this is a brilliantly detailed troll, or if the writer actually believes is.
Come on dude, really? In this day & age? Why are you an anonymous coward? Why don't you sign in & publish your fever dreams under a name?
.......go til ya know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:42PM
comes across as a tad parochial
(Score: 1) by driven on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:47PM
Jesus, mainstream media really sucks in the West. I didn't even know they had one space station, let alone two.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dunbal on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:57PM
Well one of them is out of fuel and slowly de-orbiting. So only one functional space station. But yeah. That's what you get when you impose sanctions on people and prohibit them from joining your international space station. They say "o reery? Werr fuk yu tu" and build their own. And then 20 years later when the shoe is on the other foot and it's your economy in the shitter and you can't even afford a manned space program anymore, you have to beg rides off the Russians who are nice enough to let you go even when your politicians won't shut up about how evil Russia is.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @07:23PM
you have to beg rides off the Russians who are nice enough to let you go even when your politicians won't shut up about how evil Russia is
The situation always reminds me of this quote from 2010:
"A Russian craft, flown by Russians, carrying a few poor Americans, who need our help. That also doesn't look too bad on the front page of Pravda." --Dimitri Moisevitch
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @10:26PM
And then 20 years later when the shoe is on the other foot and it's your economy in the shitter
It's hard to argue that the US economy is substantially worse than it was 20 years ago. I'll agree that one could argue it is worse (a hard argument, given the number of computers, cell phones, large TVs, and other items have increased over the years), but do you really think it is substantially worse?
Source [multpl.com]. I'm sure there are more.
and you can't even afford a manned space program anymore,
There is a difference between not being able to afford it, and deciding it is not a wise choice. I could just as easily point to your not owning a garden gnome [wikipedia.org] as proof that you are poor. "He/she can't even afford a garden gnome, how pathetic."
You can disagree with the decision, but do you really think that the US couldn't afford a space program right now. If 90% of the population demanded it, I'm sure that 5% of the US government budget (let alone the GDP) would easily be able to fund all demands for a space program.
you have to beg rides off the Russians who are nice enough to let you go
If by "beg" you mean pay lots of money [foxnews.com]. Don't try to portray this as the charity of the Russians letting the hapless Americans bum a ride. This is an economic transaction, pure and simple.
At best you can spin this to a "US and Russia don't distrust/hate each other's guts."
even when your politicians won't shut up about how evil Russia is.
This is true... but it also masks the fact that both Russia and the US are large and diverse places. How many Americans hate the US government? I assume Russia has just as much diversity.
Also, how much hatred would you need to have to turn down a ~$70m sale?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:08PM
China Launched its Second "Heavenly Palace" Thursday Morning [Updated] [soylentnews.org]
More context in the comments.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday October 19 2016, @07:40PM
Sorry takyon, I must have missed that article, otherwise I would have added the link.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:10PM
Just shut up and watch the World Series and US athletes win the only event that matter at the Olympics. Best country in the world, and everyone else is just jealous, so their stuff doesn't matter and we've done it before them. Praise our flag every day, hold on to your gun.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @07:03PM
They don't stick with you, they're like nothing. I had two and was hungry again within the hour. And what a headache I got!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:53PM
on the other side of the pond, the _other_ super power is hosting a debate between an alleged rapist/4th reich and an alleged womanizer partner-in-crime/traitor