Source: China Intellectual Property News
On June 17th, 2021, the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft, or Divine Vessel, was launched on a Long March-2F carrier rocket, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gobi Desert. The mission was led by Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, Tang Hongbo. According to Gao Xu, deputy director designer of the Shenzhou-12, the creation of the manned spacecraft implemented “the maximum standards from the country’s area industry.”
This is the 19th time since the China's manned space program was launched. It is the first time for Chinese astronauts to enter their own space station. On July 4th, astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo in Tiangong space station finished their first 7-hour EVA spacewalk for robotic arm testing, panorama device lifting, emergency returning testing, etc. The successful launching of Shenzhou-12 manned spaceship lays a good foundation for achieving the long-standing goal to build a station, and indicates a big step towards the space exploration.
This mission is embodied with many China’s homegrown tech breakthroughs owning independent intellectual property rights. The reliability rating of Long March-2F orbital carrier rocket has been lifted from 0.97 to 0.9894, improving its own record. The estimated safety index of the rocket has reached 0.99996 from 0.997, which is also world-leading. The scientists have improved the security performance and anti-jamming performance of the Y12 rocket through the changes made in the escape safety control system. China's home-developed BeiDou Navigation Satellites System is introduced into the mission. The orbit of the spacecraft and the orbit data of the space station are provided by Beidou satellites in real time. The control computer and the data management computer of the Shenzhou-12 are equipped with home-developed CPUs, components and raw materials.
Gao Xu said “the development of the manned spacecraft follows the highest standards in the country’s space industry”. The Shenzhou-12 is made up of three sections—an orbiter module, a return module and a propelling module, and has 14 sub-systems onboard. Gao referred to the spacecraft as a “vessel of life”, as it does not only ferry the three astronauts to the orbiting Tianhe core module, but also carries them home to Earth. The propelling module is equipped with the propelling device and the power supply to control the attitude orbit.
The great-leap-forward development of China’s manned space program is closely related to the independent innovations. A series of Shenzhou spaceships are made by China with full independent intellectual property rights, to achieve or superior to the international third generation of manned spacecraft technology.
The successful launch of Shenzhou-12 has fully indicated our determination of realizing the country's self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology, as well as our strong power of creating scientific and technological innovations. The aerospace science and technology have been promoted during the development of China’s manned space program, fully interpreting the law of technological innovation, i.e., put the innovations into practice continually, Mr. Xu Chunming, Professor of Shanghai International College of Intellectual Property of Tongji University said.
Moreover, China’s manned space program continually breaks the new record. China has proceeded by steady steps of building a space power, and made great achievements in this sphere, including the development of space science and technologies, and space application, like the Changzheng-5B, the Tianhe core module, and Tianzhou 2 cargo ship docking with Tianhe core module, etc.
China has already engaged in fruitful cooperation with the international community, and in the future, China will continue to contribute to the peaceful use of the outer space.
