China appears to pull off satellite feat that NASA has never achieved
https://www.newsweek.com/china-satellites-nasa-docking-2098494?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_main
China appears to pull off satellite feat that NASA has never achieved
https://www.newsweek.com/china-satellites-nasa-docking-2098494?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_main
10 Comments
By Theo Burman – Live News Reporter:
Two remote-controlled Chinese satellites appear to have docked in high orbit to allow refueling and servicing for the first time.
The achievement, which has yet to be matched by the U.S, involved autonomous spacecraft Shijian-21 and Shijian-25, completing the task in geostationary orbit earlier this month.
Geostationary orbits occur at 22,236 miles above the surface, and are typically used for communications satellites so that they can move with the rotation of the Earth. However, the high orbit and need for satellites to maintain speeds with the Earth’s rotation makes docking extremely difficult.
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Very cool. I hope China as well as other nations continue to lead us into the future of space exploration and new technologies.
Get ready to see more of this. China is ramping up investment in Space. Competition is good and hopefully this motivates Western countries to stop sitting on their hands.
Space race 2.0 babyyyyyyyy.
It’s almost like if you systematically take away funding to NASA while funneling it towards shady privatized groups while other countries DUMP boatloads of money into their version of NASA, you lose your top ranking. Then cutting half of the funding is just insult to injury. making America shit again, just like every previous republikkklan president.
what exactly makes this more difficult than low earth orbit? is this actually newsworthy other than doing it further away? or are there actual additional practical difficulties beyond simply doing it further away?
for me it seems like, ‘we refueled a plane last month and proved it could be done and now WOW we refueled a plane, like, 1000 miles away’
This is something that the US will likely never be capable of. China will be the dominant space power. I would point out that any outsourcing of space programs is in fact allowing private companies to control the technology developed. The U.S. government has given up its position as the premier space program. This has huge military and technological implications. Space programs are the one area trickle down theory is real.
NASA may not have publicly achieved this but I can assure you other agencies in the US have.
Two satellites docked in high orbit ready for fuel transfer tests.
I don’t know why so many journalists keep the important information out of the headline. It’s such a cheap dirty way to get clicks. “China’s space program discovers this one simple trick that doctors hate!”
I guess all those kids in my cod lobby were right when they screamed out China #1
So they are apparently accomplished what musk promised they’d do with their starship years ago… seems like they will beat the Americans back to the moon at this rate