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Shenzhou Circumlunar Mission

The July 24, 2001 edition of the Chinese aerospace magazine Hangkong Zhishi provided new details of China's lunar programs, including a four-step long term plan. The first step is a flyby or orbiting mission before 2005, possibly using the DFH-3 bus. The second step is a soft-landing mission before 2010. The third and the fourth step, from 2010 to 2020 and from 2020 to 2030, are robotic explorations focusing on rover and sample return missions. After 2030, it said China plans to establish a lunar base and make manned flights.

On 20 May 2002 Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's moon exploration programme, said "China is expected to complete its first exploration of the moon in 2010 and will establish a base on the moon as we did in the South Pole and the North Pole." That language suggested to some that China was planning human exploration of the Moon. However, in an interview with the BBC a day later, Ouyang said his remarks were misinterpreted. “We will explore the Moon certainly, but with unmanned spacecraft,” he told the BBC.

Robert Walker, a former Congressman and chairman of the House Science Committee who most recently led the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. In a May 29, 2003 an op-ed in the Washington Times newspaper, Walker claimed that China was planning piloted missions to the Moon by the end of the decade. “The conclusion that the Chinese are engaged in an aggressive space program is my own, based upon the commission’s findings, but not included in the panel’s final report,” he wrote. “What we saw and heard during our year of hearings and investigation convinced me that China intends to be on the moon within a decade and will announce they are there for a permanent stay.”

The American engineering and analysis consulting company, the FUTRON Corporation, in its report, China and the Second Space Age," released 15 October 2003 [the same day as the first Chinese piloted flight], stated “China intends to conduct a mission to circumnavigate the Moon in a similar manner as was carried out by Apollo-8 in 1968 ... This mission will apparently involve a modified Shenzhou spacecraft and will be launched around 2006...” The source of this claim was not disclosed.

There is no evidence that China is developing the large launch vehicles needed for a piloted Lunar landing. But China could emulate the Soviet L-1 circumlunar mission profile from the mid-1960s using existing boosters. The Proton has a nominal payload of 20,000 kg to LEO, while the L-1 Zond 7 had a reported mass of 5979 kg. The Shenzhou descent capsule mass of 3,000 kg and the instrument propulsion module 2,800 kg are comparable [5,800 kg], while the 2,000 kg orbital module would not be needed for this mission.

The new Long March CZ-2EA can place 12,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, while the Long March 3B can place about 13,500 kilograms into low Earth orbit. A single launch of one of these boosters could be used to place a trans-lunar injection stage into low earth orbit. A piloted CZ-2F would first launch a modified Shenzhou capsule. Then 3 days later [the pad turnaround time at Jiuquan] the Trans-Lunar Injection stage would be launched. The two would dock.

The CZ-3B upper stage, which uses a version of the Lox/LH2 YF-75 engine, could be used as a Trans-Lunar Injection stage to send the Shenzhou into a circumlunar trajectory. The third stage uses 18,200 kg of cryogenic propellants, i.e. liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX), which is more than would be required for the translunar mission. Two universal gimballing engines provide the total thrust of 157kN. The expansion ratio of the engines is 80:1 and the specific impulse is 4312N·s/kg. The LH2 tank is pressurized by helium and regeneration system, and the LOX tank is pressurized by heated helium and regeneration system.

It turns out that if the booster is launched without a paylaod, the CZ-3B this stage can place itself into low earth orbit with sufficient residual propellant to serve as the Trans-Lunar Injection stage for the Shenzhou circumlunar boyage.