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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?
(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.