Indeed, China shall be embarrassed since it has so little manned mission. I guess China shall be embarrassed when even Vietnam has make it to space much earlier than China. How many world class space rocket has Vietnam launched to embarrass China space program? Care to tell me?
Vietnam launched to embarrass China space program? Care to tell me?
How do u defined low or great? Having 100 manned mission and try send as many astronaut as possible while doing only space tour or repeat the same thing just to have the bragging rights of more manned mission?
Lol.. Did US land something in the dark side of the moon? No...
Lol.. There are still many scientific research of medical , physics needed to be carry out in space.
Lol.. There are still many scientific research of medical , physics needed to be carry out in space.
Totally agree, team North-Korea-Iran will certainly be the 4th to return a man alive from space, because the above armies of foolish troll simply don't realize what is at stake.
www.armscontrolwonk.com
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Soviet R-36 (8K69, OR-36, R-36orb) Fractional Orbital Bombing System
The R-36-O was the only orbiting military nuclear weapon ever deployed, although in order to remain legal under international treaties it was a 'fractional orbital' weapon, 18 missiles were operational from 1969 to 1983.
The 8F021 orbiting warhead had the Russian acronym OGCh. It consisted of an 8F673 orbital module, and fixed on top of it the re-entry vehicle.
The 8F673 orbital module was an equipment unit which oriented the spacecraft in orbit and autonomously determined when to make the braking maneuver to bring the re-entry vehicle down from orbit.
The 8F673 orbital module included an inertial navigation system and a radar altimeter which measured the altitude of the orbit and thereby determined when to make the braking maneuver. A solid fuel cartridge then spun up the turbine assembly of the liquid propellant (N2O4/UDMH) braking engine. Orientation was by 4 + 4 thrusters using turbine exhaust gases.
LEO Payload: 1'700 kg to a 150 km orbit. Standard warhead: 1'700 kg. Maximum range: 40'000 km. Number Standard Warheads: 1. Standard RV: 8F021. Warhead yield: 5'000 KT. CEP: 1.10 km. Boost Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket, N2O4/UDMH. Cruise Thrust: 940.400 kN. Cruise Thrust: 95'900 kgf. Cruise engine: RD-252. Initial Operational Capability: 1969.
Stage Data - R-36-O
• Stage 1. 1 x R-36-0-1. Gross Mass: 125'000 kg. Empty Mass: 8'500 kg. Thrust (vac): 2'640.000 kN. Isp: 301 sec. Burn time: 120 sec. Isp(sl): 269 sec. Diameter: 3.00 m. Span: 3.00 m. Length: 18.90 m. Propellants: N2O4/UDMH. No Engines: 1. Engine: RD-251.
• Stage 2. 1 x R-36-0-2. Gross Mass: 48'000 kg. Empty Mass: 5'000 kg. Thrust (vac): 955.991 kN. Isp: 317 sec. Burn time: 160 sec. Diameter: 3.00 m. Span: 3.00 m. Length: 9.40 m. Propellants: N2O4/UDMH. No Engines: 1. Engine: RD-252.
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▲ 1. 8К69 (SS-9 Mod 3) was the first orbiting military nuclear weapon deployed by the U.S.S.R.
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▲ 2. The 1'700 kg 8F021 orbiting warhead had the Russian acronym OGCh。
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▲ 3. The 1'700 kg 8F021 orbiting warhead had the Russian acronym OGCh。
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▲ 4. Soviet 8F673 orbital module。
Chinese DF-6 (东风六号导弹) Fractional Orbital Bombing System
The cancelled Chinese DF-6 FOBS ICBM (东风六号导弹) developed starting from November 1966, was made of 3 stages, all burning liquid propellants. The first stage could produce a thrust of 400 tonnes at liftoff, carrying a 3'200 kg orbiting warhead.
The maximum range was 31'000 km, the length 45 m, the total mass 270 tonnes.
The DF-6 was an uprated DF-5.
The DF-6 missile was to carry the first Chinese manned spacecraft Shuguang-1, and the first GEO satellite.
Prototype of the spaceraft and spacesuit were developed, astronaut selection process also started.
First launch of the spacecraft was expected by 1975.
The program was cancelled on 28 March 1974, due to economic difficulties.
Disclosing China's Dongfeng 6 missile: with range three times that of the Dongfeng 41, project ultimately cancelled
May 31, 2018 10:16 Sina Military
In China's ballistic missile family, intercontinental missiles have always been the most mysterious and attracting the most attention.
Among the models that have been disclosed so far, the heaviest is the Dongfeng-5B liquid intercontinental strategic nuclear missile.
The Dongfeng-5 ballistic missile was developed by China in the 1970s, but what is less known is that China was preparing to develop a missile named Dongfeng-6.
Dongfeng-6 was a three-stage liquid missile with a staggering maximum range of 31'000 kilometers, a total length of 45 meters, and a maximum take-off weight of 270 tons.
The multi-warheads FOBS ICBM was underground silo-launched.
In that era, this kind of missile with a range of tens of thousands of kilometers had a proud name: Orbiting Missile (环球导弹).
As early as the 1960s, the Soviet Union had been equipped with an Orbiting Missile, which was the R-36O, an improved R-36 missile (NATO codename SS-9).
The missile had a launch weight of 181 tons, a diameter of 3.05 meters, and used liquid fuel.
Compared with other types of R-36 missiles, the missile mainly had an added third-stage, which could send a warhead into the earth's orbit, heading toward the southern hemisphere after passing the south pole, and attack from the south where the United States did not have a missile warning system at the time.
The R-36O has a maximum range of 40'000 kilometers. It began to be deployed in 1968. Since then, it has been tested twice a year to show the United States that the Soviet Union had the capability to use this missile and also verify its reliability.
Perhaps it is precisely because of the Soviet Union's Orbiting Missile that China decided to develop such class of intercontinental ballistic missile in the last century. Stimulated by the Soviet R-36O, China also devised its own Orbiting Missile plan.
This was the Dongfeng 6 mentioned at the beginning of the article.
In December 1966, the National Defense Science and Technology Commission agreed to include the Dongfeng-6 in the development plan.
In November 1967, the National Defense Science and Technology Commission held a Dongfeng-6 Orbiting Missile program demonstration meeting, which clarified the main tactical and technical specifications.
At the same time, the Dongfeng-6 space launch vehicle plan for carrying the first manned spacecraft Shuguang-1 (Dawn-1:曙光一号) of the country's along the first geosynchronous orbit satellite was planned.
A lot of technical coordination works were conducted many times.
In 1970, the National Defense Science and Technology Commission proposed to Premier Zhou Enlai and the Central Military Commission the Request for Instructions on the Development of Manned Spacecraft and Communication Satellites (Draft), and proposed the Shuguang-1 manned spacecraft (code name 714 project) with place for two astronauts, and flight time up to eight days in orbit. The plan was scheduled for the first unmanned spacecraft to be launched in 1973 and the maiden manned spacecraft in 1974.
The launch vehicle of the Shuguang-1 was to be the Dongfeng-6 Orbiting Missile.
In 1971, the Seventh Ministry of Machinery reported the Preliminary Development Plan for Dongfeng-6 to the National Defense Science and Technology Commission.
In this plan, it was clear that the range of the Dongfeng-6 would be 16'000 to 31'000 kilometers.
However, when the Dongfeng-6 missile was developed, the technical specifications proposed and the related technologies planned to be adopted were too advanced.
The plug nozzle engine belong to a class of altitude compensating nozzles, such a new class of engine planned to be used then has not even entered actual use until today.
Dongfeng-6 was a three-stage rocket. The first stage used a conventional 400-ton high-thrust engine, the second stage used an altitude compensating nozzle engine, and the third stage was a post-boost vehicle.
Each stages of this three-stage rocket used different rocket engines, making technical challenges too difficult.
By investing more time on the DF-6, it would have definitely affected the development of the equally important Dongfeng-5.
On 28th March 1974, the Seventh Ministry of Machinery informed the First Academy that, according to the instructions of the Deputy Director of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission Qian Xuesen, the National Defense Science and Technology Commission decided to stop the development of the Dongfeng-6.
Prior to this, the development of the Shuguang-1 manned spacecraft project had also begun to slow down.
In fact, Dongfeng-6 is not an intercontinental missile in the traditional sense, but a FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombing System) missile system, also known as an Orbiting Missile.
FOBS is usually on standby on the ground, and when used, it is launched into earth orbit. After the rocket second stage is separated, according to ground instructions, the retro-rockets of the PBV are fired sending it into a deorbiting orbit into the atmosphere.
Because it only achieves a fraction of a complete orbit before reentering the atmosphere, it is called a fractional orbital bombing system.
However, if the developement of the Dongfeng-6 project had the conditions to continue, it should still be able to succeed.
After all, in terms of overall technical level, the Dongfeng-6 is equivalent to an uprated version of the Dongfeng-5.
Even if it did not place nuclear warheads in orbit, it could have been used in civilian manned spaceflight.
If the development of the Dongfeng-6 had not been cancelled, China's first manned spaceflight would not have taken place only in 2003, but 25 years earlier.
东风六号导弹_百度百科
“东风6号”并非传统意义上的洲际导弹，而是一种FOBS导弹系统，又被称为轨道轰炸器，其可搭载质量高达3200千克的战斗部。“东风6号”理论射程可绕地球一周，所以被称做环球火箭。由于“东风6号”的技术难度太大，三级火箭每一级发动机都不相同，尤其是第二级的塞式发动机，直到目前美国仍处于研制当中。最后经过科研人员三年的奋战，“东风6号”不得不中途下马，而部分资金和技术则转移到了其它型号的导弹与火箭上。...baike.baidu.com
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▲ 5. The Shuguang-1 (Dawn One) manned spacecraft (code-named Project 714) was piloted by two astronauts and had a maximum flight time of eight days. It was planned to launch an unmanned spacecraft in 1973 and a manned spacecraft in 1974. The Shuguang-1 was lanched by the Dongfeng-6 Orbiting Missile.
North Korea’s Fractional Orbital Bombing System
Peeking under the shroud of North Korea’s Monster Missile
November 5, 2020
Some unresolved questions surround the huge new mobile missiles that North Korea showed off in last month’s parade. Most of all: what will they carry, and when will the North Koreans reveal it through flight-testing?
Let’s start with what we can observe. The external characteristics of the weapon are consistent with a two-stage, liquid-propelled ICBM. In many ways, it’s similar to the Hwasong-15, which North Korea tested in 2017, but on a larger scale. My CNS colleagues estimate that the new missile is about 25 m long, compared to the roughly 20 m-long HS-15. It has a first stage of about 2.4 m [3 m] in diameter, compared to the approximately 2.1 m [2.4 m] diameter of the HS-15.
Like the HS-15, the Monster Missile features a “skirt” at the base of its first stage, suggesting a cluster of gimbaled engines, and an evocatively named “shroud” over its payload section at the front. That’s a hollow cover that pops off after the missile leaves the atmosphere, allowing whatever the missile carries to deploy.
As Mike Elleman and Vann van Diepen were quick to observe, the HS-15 already appears capable of sending a heavy payload to anyplace on the mainland of these United States. It follows that the new missile wasn’t built for greater range, but to carry a bigger, heavier payload. Which means… what?
Even before the parade, veteran intelligence analysts Markus Garlauskas and Bruce Perry noted that the logical next step for the North Korean ICBM program would be to deploy multi-warhead missiles in order to thwart U.S. missile defenses. Ensuring that North Korea’s nuclear weapons can penetrate the American “shield” may be what Kim Jong Un meant when he said in 2017 that “our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force [or “effective balance of power”] with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about [a] military option for the DPRK.”
The U.S. pioneered the multiple reentry vehicle (MRV) concept in the early 1960s, followed by the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV). The Soviet Union caught up with their own versions within a decade or so. You could think of MRV as nuclear grapeshot, spraying a handful of bombs across one area. MIRV is more precise and more adaptable; it involves a small rocket engine called a post-boost vehicle, or “bus,” that pushes each warhead it carries onto a selected course, sending them to different targets if desired.
Some combination of multiple warheads and missile-defense countermeasures–chaff, decoys, and so forth–has become the favorite in this morbid little guessing game. If they’re ambitious, perhaps the North Koreans might be trying to replicate Britain’s Chevaline payload, which was designed to let its Polaris missiles thwart nuclear-tipped interceptors placed around Moscow. Chevaline was a two-warhead system with a post-boost vehicle that dispensed countermeasures into various patterns in space. It’s also rather well-documented today, as these things go.
There’s another possibility that I’ve yet to see explored at length, though. Let’s call it a dark horse. It’s another approach to beating missile defense, and one that requires a heavy payload, but no more than a single warhead per missile. That’s the fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS).
FOBS was a Soviet innovation, brought to fruition in the mid-1960s, before the USSR developed its own multiple-warhead missiles. It involved a modified ICBM that launched its payload into low earth orbit. When the payload approached its target, an onboard retro-rocket would fire, deorbiting the warhead.
The advantage of FOBS was its ability to circumvent NORAD’s lines of early-warning radars in Canada. The FOBS weapon could be launched in any direction, allowing the USSR to launch an attack over the South Pole if desired.
Today’s early-warning radars don’t just provide warning; they also supply crucial data to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD). These radars are located in Alaska, Greenland, the UK, California, and Massachusetts, pointing north, west, and east, whereas the interceptors themselves are mostly in Alaska, waiting for an attack from the north. Thus, the same old FOBS concept remains applicable. It’s even enjoying new life in Russia, whose president has said that the Sarmat multi-warhead missile can attack over either the North or the South Pole.
With the ability to attack in FOBS mode, North Korea could compel the United States to an unhappy choice: either build what amounts to a substantially new, south-facing defensive architecture, or accept that it cannot physically prevent nuclear attack from Pyongyang, even under the sunniest of assumptions about GMD’s performance.
Even if North Korea is building a FOBS today, its leaders probably anticipate a transition to MIRV in time, following the Soviet precedent. But FOBS could have certain advantages for now. First, the technology simply might be more rapidly attainable. Second, sticking with just one warhead per missile demands less fissile material. Third, it also avoids creating pressure to return to nuclear testing to demonstrate the smaller, lighter warheads most suited to MRV or MIRV. Fourth, being able to deorbit a payload essentially anywhere means that North Korea could finally conduct a fully realistic and instrumented test of an intercontinental-class reentry vehicle on its own territory, or close to its own shores; they’d just have to fly one all the way around the world.
There’s an uncomfortably large chance that we’ll find out soon what the Monster Missile hides under that shroud. A transition to a Biden administration on January 20, 2021 gives Kim Jong Un an incentive to try to demonstrate the existence of an “effective balance of power” beforehand, since it might strengthen his hand without directly challenging the newly inaugurated president. Kim has set the 8th Workers’ Party Congress for January as well; the success of a “new strategic weapon”–either real success or merely alleged–could set the stage for changes in governing structures and the direction of policy.
Whatever does happen, I can’t see any benefits from sitting back and waiting for North Korea to demonstrate the ability to overcome GMD by whatever means. That will mean bargaining for the reaffirmation of Kim Jong Un’s April 2018 pledge not to test long-range missiles or nuclear devices, which he declared a dead letter in January of this year. How that will work will be up to the new team in Washington, but the sooner they decide on their approach, the better.
Peeking under the shroud of North Korea’s Monster Missile
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▲ 6. Iranian 1'800 kg E1 spacecraft： new prototype disclosed in 2016 on the left， first 2015 exhibition model on the right。
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▲ 7. North Korean Unha-9 SLV carrying the 1'800 kg one-seater E1 spacecraft (Mallima: “千里马号”（천리마）)， similar to the Project 714 Shuguang-1 spacecraft。
The model disclosed so far by Iran of the E1 is only the reentry vehicle. Because it is the only part to be tested in the first suborbital phase.
Expect a future orbital module to be disclosed only after that, in the phase two when orbital manned flight will be considered, and similar in shape and size to the Soviet 8F673 orbital module!
Vehicle Design Soviet 8K69 FOBS Chinese DF-6 (东风六号)
North Korean Unha-9 (은하9호) Start of Development April 1962 1971 2012 First flight December 1965 Planned 1973
Project cancelled on 28 March 1974Speculated 2021 Total length 32.60 m 45 m ~44 m Diameter 3.05 m 3 m Gross liftoff weight 181 t 270 t ~210 t Stage 3 3 3 Payload weight LEO/warhead 4.5 t /
1.7 t @150km3.200 t ~4 t / 1.8 t Max range 40'000 km 31'000 km
Stage 1 Hwasong-16 Length 18.90 m ~18.5 m Diameter 3 m 3 m Liftoff weight
125 t 131 t Engines
1*RD-251
4 * Paektusan-1D Thrust
880.0 kN (Vac.) Total thrust 2366 kN/2640 kN Vac
400 tf 3520 kN (Vac.) Propellant UDMH/N2O4
liquid UDMH/N2O4 Stage 2 Hwasong-15 Length 9.40 m ~16.50 m Diameter 3 m 2.4 m Liftoff weight 48 t 61.50 t Engines 1*RD-252 altitude compensating nozzle engine 1 * Paektusan-1C Thrust 880.0 kN (Vac.) Total thrust 940.400 kN/955.991 kN Vac 880.0 kN (Vac.) Propellant UDMH/N2O4
liquid UDMH/N2O4 Stage 3 OGCh Length 3 m Diameter 2.4 m Liftoff weight 1700kg 12.65 t Engines RD-854 2 * Thrust 7.7 t Total thrust Propellant UDMH/N2O4 liquid UDMH/N2O4
No wonder, the range from both Iran and North Korea for an FOBS targeting the U.S.A. mainland from the south direction, after circumnavigating the South Pole and the Southern Hemisphere is 30'000 km. Similar to the DF-6 FOBS.
https://archive.is/ivyJH/72cfd94021754183dd05ba21e89c47aca915ceb9.jpg ; https://archive.is/ivyJH/c0b2abee4477a09093ddac025a9c5621d2cca7be/scr.png ; http://web.archive.org/web/20201115042022/https://i.imgur.com/zSYeykO.jpg
▲ 1. The range from both Iran and North Korea for an FOBS targeting the U.S.A. mainland from the south direction, after circumnavigating the South Pole and the Southern Hemisphere is 30'000 km.
