China's Space Station Plans Move Forward, Software Contract Awarded
A UK firm has won a $1 million contract from China to provide software tools for use in China's evolving space station program.
LDRA is a UK company that will provide a tool suite to analyze complex safety-critical applications related to China's Tiangong 1 spacecraft.
Tiangong 1, or Heavenly Palace 1, is a platform to test the space docking technology - a first step in China's bid to build and operate a large space station in Earth orbit.
The LDRA tool suite will enable Chinese space program engineers to achieve the stringent safety-critical standards required to ensure the safe launch of the Heavenly Palace 1.
The new contract extends LDRA's experience in the Chinese market where the LDRA tool suite has been used by the aerospace and defense software market for projects including China's human spaceflight efforts, as well as that country's Moon exploration programs.
The LDRA tool suite has been used within China's manned spacecraft program since 2001.
According to a LDRA press statement issued today, China's primary mission with the Tiangong 1 will be to carry out space rendezvous and docking experiments, to guarantee the working and living conditions of Chinese taikonauts and to ensure their safety during short-term parking orbits.
The Tiangong 1 activities also include conducting space application and aerospace medical experiments, space science experiments and technical testing of the space station, as well as establishing a space experiment platform that can carry out short-term manned missions and long-term independent and reliably-operated unmanned missions.
Earlier this year, Qi Faren, chief designer of China's Shenzhou spacecraft, told China Daily that the Tiangong 1, or Heavenly Palace 1, was scheduled for launch before 2011. It would be utilized as a platform to test the space docking technology, he said.
"In its one- to two-year lifespan, Tiangong I, which weighs 8.5 tons, will be the object that Shenzhou 8, Shenzhou 9 and Shenzhou 10 will dock with in order to test the technology," he said.
According to the plan, Shenzhou 8 would be an unmanned spaceship that will try to dock with Tiangong 1 in 2011, if preparations go smoothly, Qi said. If that mission is a success, he added, piloted spaceships would be launched to dock with the Tiangong I.
By Leonard David
Not really an update, except for the information on the software contract. Qi said more or less the same thing about the Tiangong mission on air during interviews conducted during the Shenzhou VII mission.
