The near -ground track space is a "big treasure" "space science popularization"

Not long ago, Shenzhou 14 manned spacecraft lifted off smoothly. The three astronauts will perform the docking work of the two major experimental compartment of the sky and the core cabin on the track and the core cabin to complete the comprehensive construction tasks of the China Tiangong Space Station. This not only means that the Chinese have a stable "home" in space, but also that we have entered a new stage of the development of space resources, especially the development of near -ground rail resources. So, what are the near -ground track space resources?

Valuable resources are useful

The history of the development of human civilization is the exploration and development history of resources. From the Shiji era, the bronze era, the iron era to the steam era, until the information age, human beings' ability to utilize the earth's resources is expanding rapidly. In the past, all resources that human development relied on were limited, and they were limited to the small rocky planets of the earth.

Space telescope almost reshaped astronomy

For the current space age, human beings are infinite. For example, there are at least trillion stars like the solar level in the universe, and even the "slightly insignificant" sun, one -billionth radiation energy has created all known life on the planet.

However, it is still a distant dream to develop distant interstellar spaces with existing human aerospace technology. Human beings can only start from the first step in front of them, especially the near -ground rail space from 200 to 2000 kilometers from Earth. This is the junction of the earth and the vast space. It has the characteristics of space and relatively easy to develop, which has become the first orbit for the choice of manned aerospace and most spacecraft.

Once you enter the near -ground orbit, you only need to keep a stable orbit flight, and the spacecraft can be maintained in a stable state of weight. This is the perfect experimental environment that cannot be maintained on the earth for a long time. For example, water droplets can easily form a perfect sphere naturally in space. Biological growth and motion are not interfered by gravity. Even if the surface of the spacecraft is in a special space radiation environment, it can become a platform for high -tech experiments.

In space, the influence of the earth's atmosphere, magnetic field, and ionization layer of the spacecraft is significantly lower than the surface of the earth. For example, when the space telescope enters the universe space, you can observe the electromagnetic waves of almost all bands. On the earth, most of the electromagnetic bands cannot be reached due to the influence of the ground magnetic field/ionizing layer shield, meteorological conditions, and human light/electromagnetic pollution.

In the space age, space telescopes such as "Hubble", "Sipz" and "Herchel" almost reshaped human astronomy.

In addition, near -earth orbit is closer to the earth, faster orbit, and shorter orbit cycles. The remote sensing satellite in the near -ground orbit can not only obtain clearer observation information, but also visit the world faster. After the network, it can also become a perfect "Skynet", which is of great significance.

Therefore, if the earth is the cradle of human beings, then the near -ground track is the first "learning walking car" of human beings.

Rich and diverse

Near -ground orbit is the best choice for manned aerospace. If the track is too low, the thin air will slowly reduce the track of the spacecraft and space stations, resulting in the high cost of maintaining the stable track of the space station. Frequent freight ships are pushed to push high tracks; if the rails are too high, the earth's ionization layer and magnetic field asylum are less.

Near -ground orbit is the best choice for manned spaceflight

Manned spacecraft usually choose to run on the track of the 40 ~ 50 degrees, which is also more beneficial. Here can not only ensure that the low -latitude population -intensive area is covered by the earth, and it is easy to achieve measurement and control support; it can better use the inertia of the earth's rotation and improve the launch efficiency. For example, in the era of China entering the space station, in addition to the traditional Jiuquan satellite launch center, due to the advantages of supporting facilities, it continues to be used for manned launch. The subsequent space station construction and freight ship missions are selected at Wenchang Aerospace launchers with lower latitude.

Sun synchronization track is another precious space resource. The earth is not a perfect sphere, and the flat rate of this ellipsoid will cause the satellite orbital angle to change slowly. If the inclination itself is affected by the gravity of the earth by designing the orbit, it is consistent with the natural progress of the earth around the sun, then the local time when the spacecraft passes through a certain place on the earth will be basically fixed. For example, every time the spacecraft pass through a certain point of the equator, it is two o'clock in the afternoon in the afternoon of the local time. Therefore, this track is named solar synchronous orbit with a height of 600 ~ 800 kilometers, and the orbital inclination is about 98 degrees.

When the sun synchronizes rail aerospace, it always has a stable lighting environment when flying across somewhere, which is of great significance to satellites such as optical remote sensing, meteorological detection and resource exploration, and can be visited and repeatedly visited to obtain the most valuable information. If you design the track more finely, let the spacecraft move along the morning fuse of the earth, and can achieve very energy -consuming local observations such as radar interference, and can also be used for long -term stable solar observations.

The above two leading tracks occupy the absolute advantage of the development of near -ground track resources.

In addition, there are some special applications on this basis. For example, the polar orbit will stabilize through the pole. Under the effect of the Earth's rotation, it can achieve no dead corners of the earth. The low -inclination orbring of the equator can cover the most densely populated area on the earth, and the commercial value is higher.

Development showing acceleration

The near -ground track has always been the most intensity of human development and the most harvested space resources. Whether it is a major manned space engineering such as the ritual series, Peace, Sky Lab, Aerospace Aircraft, International Space Station, and Tiangong Space Station, or satellites such as all kinds of meteorological, remote sensing, earth science and astronomy, are near the orbit as the preferred destination. However, with the large number of low -orbit Internet communication satellites, near -ground space has begun to become more and more crowded. Near -orbit orbital gives artificial satellites broad space

Taking the Star Chain Satellite Constellation, which is constructed by the American SpaceX company, as an example, with the technical and cost advantage of the Falcon 9 Rockets, the star chain satellite is quickly occupying the near -ground space rail resources. If a large low -orbit satellite constellation launched by companies such as a network, Amazon, Airbus, Samsung and other companies, this means that only in the low -orbital range, tens of thousands of satellites will be launched worldwide in the next 10 to 20 years. More than 60 years of satellite accumulation, and this is only a field of satellite Internet.

On the surface, near -ground rail resources are almost infinite. For the existing human spacecraft, it is still "empty". But space is also full of risks. Each spacecraft on the near -ground track is moving at a speed of more than 7 km/s, which is almost 200 times the highway 120 km/h.

In this case, any object has great momentum and is amazing. Therefore, there may be many occasional risks during operation. Once the spacecraft or collision with space fragments, the number of space fragments will increase suddenly. If you do not control it without control, the space garbage will grow at will. In the imaginary future, the earth will be covered by space garbage. Therefore, humans must think about Methods to keep a near -orbit environment clean.

The best solution is the root cause. On the one hand, the possibility of eliminating satellites into space garbage from the beginning. There is a certain amount of balance during the design of satellites and rockets, allowing them to carry enough pushing agents. When the satellites approach their life, they use the final motivation to leave the orbit and return to the atmosphere. On the other hand, countries around the world must formulate the rules of space traffic to prevent potential collision risks and jointly develop space resources to be peaceful.

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