In recent months, it has begun dawning on US lawmakers that, absent significant intervention, China will land humans on the Moon before the United States can return there with the Artemis Program.
So far, legislators have yet to take meaningful action on this—a $10 billion infusion into NASA’s budget this summer essentially provided zero funding for efforts needed to land humans on the Moon this decade. But now a subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology has begun reviewing the space agency’s policy, expressing concerns about Chinese competition in civil spaceflight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft)#Design
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvezda_(ISS_module)#Design
you realize there’s a difference between maneuver thrusters and boosters right? they use the soyuz and crew dragons to boost. they use the hypergolics to maneuver.
https://www.china-in-space.com/p/tianzhou-9-resupply-mission-blasts
“Propellants to refuel Tiangong’s maneuvering and attitude control thrusters are set to be delivered too” this is not boost, this is maneuver.
https://spacenews.com/chinas-shijian-spacecraft-separate-after-pioneering-geosynchronous-orbit-refueling-tests/
this just happened two weeks ago, and if you read the article:
“The separation could mark a successful conclusion to a world-first refueling operation in GEO. However, neither China’s space authorities nor the satellites’ manufacturer have commented on the mission since the launch of Shijian-25 in January.”
that COULD is doing heavy lifting, why hasn’t the news come out from official sources?
Ah, so they are refuelling Zvezda and Tiangong, but it doesn’t count. I acknowledge that they aren’t transferring cryo fuels. I just said they’re regularly transferring prop.
Zvezda can orbit raise, btw.
https://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss_sm.html
Refuelling Tiangong’s xenon hall effect thrusters probably doesn’t count, so I guess I’ll ignore it.
alright.
it’s gonna be a neat trick to watch two spacecraft line up and xfer lox or liquid methane. one part of me wonders if they’ll try to erect a sunshade or limit it to night portions of the orbit because trying to figure out the big problem - pumping cryogenic liquids in that env is hard enough without gigantic temp swings on the exteriors and tubes/piping…
I do not think it’ll work the first time lol