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Galaxy Aerospace in batches of low -orbit broadband communication satellites in Galaxy Galaxy Aerospace Conference

◇ At present, domestic satellites trying assembly line production will lay the foundation for high -efficiency mass production satellites in the future. China Star Communication still has certain dependence on basic materials, software and hardware core components, etc. to enhance the autonomous and controllable supply chain.

How many steps do you need to divide a satellite to inherit the Internet function? What technical support is needed at both ends of the world? What preparations do you have to do next?

To answer these questions, we must first be clear: low -orbit satellite system technology mainly includes satellite launch technology, satellite manufacturing technology, galaxy communication technology, user terminal phase control array technology, etc. Among them, the launch link is particularly key. According to the data of the "Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Activity Blue Book (2021)" released in early 2022, the number of launch tasks implemented in 2021 and the total number of spacecraft launch are the highest in history. However, experts believe that these launch density has not reached its peaks, and it is now just the eve of the large -scale implementation of many constellations in the world in various countries around the world.

As the corresponding technical barriers at home and abroad are gradually eliminated, there is no incredible technical bottleneck through the satellite Internet construction of the Internet access service through satellites. The construction of low -track and high bandwidth satellite constellations is entering the fast track.

Is China ready in this fierce competition?

Break through the bottleneck of constellation construction

In the huge space networks of the earth, satellites are the most basic elements of it, and satellite manufacturing is the foundation of the satellite Internet. "The cost of satellite manufacturing is constantly decreasing." At the empty sky information and digital Earth Innovation Summit held in Hefei in February this year, Wu Yirong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dean of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute By $ 1 million, the launch cost will also be greatly reduced.

At present, most of the internationally low -orbit satellites can be controlled by less than 1 million US dollars in the case of less than 500 kg.

According to Zou Ming, a senior engineer of the Strategic and Planning and Research Department of the China Electricity Development Strategy Research Center, in recent years, the technical progress of satellite antenna system, independent collision avoidance system, star sensitive device, etc. The miniaturization, modularity, and massization have become possible, which greatly reduces the volume, quality and manufacturing cost of satellite, and shorten the production cycle.

In Songjiang, Shanghai, a production line with an annual output of 300 satellites is under construction. Li Xin, deputy dean of the Shanghai Aerospace Technology Research Institute, told a reporter from the News Weekly of "Watching" that domestic satellites attempts to produce assembly line production will lay the foundation for high -efficiency mass production satellites in the future. "In the future, we may produce satellites like producing cars." At the beginning of 2021, the domestic galaxy launched a small number of satellite development and development. In less than a year, it completed the entire design, total installation, testing, testing and factory work of small batch of satellites. Communications satellite.

Earlier this year, Galaxy Aerospace's 6 low -orbit broadband communication satellites went offline to complete the factory review and shipped the launch site. Galaxy Space plans to build a satellite Internet test network that can provide broadband communication services through this batch of satellite construction to accumulate experience for large -scale networking applications.

Even so, production capacity is still one of the bottlenecks that require breakthroughs in China's low -orbit satellite manufacturing. The construction of low -orbital constellations needs to be built into thousands of satellites in a short period of time, with high production capacity. Some powerful satellite factories in China are constructing a production line with 30 small satellites per month, which is close to the production capacity of the British "One Net" company, but there is still a gap compared with 120 monthly each month.

From the ground to space, the construction of large -scale constellation projects faces a new challenge. In terms of construction experience, the Beidou satellite positioning navigation is currently a constellation system with a large -scale rail scale. It has accumulated the experience of satellite and the middle -scale batch launch of satellites and carrier rockets. It also has long -term management and abnormal disposal capabilities. However, experts believe that compared with the Beidou system, the satellite Internet constellation system is larger and more complicated. At present, China still lacks hundreds of or even thousands of satellites.

Investment of constellation construction cannot be ignored. The main body of the domestic low -orbit satellite constellation is complete, but the research department is calculated from the planned constellation construction needs. It is expected that the investment scale will exceed 80 billion yuan, which is a huge early investment. In addition, according to the single -star design life of 5 years, even if the constellation network is successful, it is necessary to constantly launch the satellite of the constellation operation. It is expected that the hard investment of the network every year is about 10 billion yuan.

Wu Mingge and other experts of China Electricity Development Strategic Research Center believe that most of the foreign Internet constellations are the commercial departments, and they are pursuing the huge economic interests brought by the Internet access. However, in addition to commercial use, the satellite Internet constellation should not ignore the public welfare attributes. Therefore, to build a satellite Internet constellation that can realize resource sharing, and walking a road of construction with Chinese characteristics requires breaking questions as soon as possible.

Satellite launch capacity is continuously enhanced

The proportion of satellite launch in the construction cost of the low -orbit constellation. Without efficient and sufficient space launch capacity, it is difficult to achieve large -scale constellation construction.

Space launch depends on the progress of rocket technology. Internationally, the latest repetitive use of rocket technology has greatly reduced the launch cost and improved the efficiency of large -scale constellation construction. Practice from relevant international companies shows that before the re -use of Rocket recycling, each launch fee is tens of millions of dollars; and after the rocket recycling can be reused, the cost of single launch is expected to be reduced to $ 6 million. For rockets, "big thrust" and "low cost" complement each other. Chen Changguang, deputy minister of the Industrial Development Department of the Shanghai Aerospace Technology Research Institute, believes that in these two aspects, the more successful technical cases are the "Falcon 9" rocket of the Space Exploration Technology Company.

As early as February 2018, the Space Exploration Technology Company sent a Spanish satellite into the track with a "Falcon 9" rocket, and also sent the company's first prototype satellite into space for the company's satellite Internet project. The "Star Chain" composed of 10,000 satellites is prepared.

Some analysts pointed out that the "Falcon 9" rocket reduced its space freight to $ 2,600 per kilogram, a folds of three quarters compared with the freight 20 years ago. The next -generation "Falcon" heavy -duty carrier rocket may further reduce costs to $ 1500 per kilogram. The "Falcon 9" Rockets have one arrow with 60 star capabilities. The design ability of the next -generation heavy -duty carrier rocket is that the 400 "Star Chain" satellite can be sent to the corresponding track each time. one.

Other methods are also being explored. In the United Kingdom, the practice of Virgin Galaxy is that after the White Knight special aircraft brought the launcher rocket to 15 kilometers away from the ground, the transmitter rocket ignited the small satellite to the near -ground track. In this way, the launch fee can be only one -sixth of the quotation of space exploration technology companies. "One arrow multi -star" and repetitive use of rocket technology are also in the field of space launch in China.

In the Chinese aerospace transportation system, which is based on the Long March series of carrier rockets, a variety of carrier rockets can "one arrow and more stars". In February of this year, the Long March 8 Launar Rockets successfully launched the 22 satellites in Wenchang to set off a new record in China. The minimum cost of repeated liquid fuel rocket fuel is only 20 % of the solid fuel. Although there is no record of launch, as the key technologies of repeated commercial rockets have continued to make breakthroughs in the near future, the domestic repeated liquid fuel commercial load The rocket's first flight time is also available in the future. "The thrust determines the capacity of the carrier. The domestic rocket tonnage is different from that of international giants." Li Xin said. In the past 2021, the United States completed a total of 51 aerospace launch, with total launch load quality of 403.34 tons, exceeding the sum of other countries. China performs 55 launch tasks, ranking first in the world, but the total quality is less than half the United States.

Satellite launch needs to be prepared for the launch site -the last stop of the spacecraft entering the space.

"2021 China Aerospace" White paper pointed out that the adaptability transformation of Jiuquan, Taiyuan, and Xichang launches is fully completed. Jiuquan launcher has added liquid rocket commercial launch stations. The combination of combination, high and low latitudes, and the combination of various shooting range can meet the diverse launch needs including various satellites.

There are also new breakthroughs in China's launch. In 2021, the maritime launch platform was put into use, filling the gap in China's maritime launch rocket. Theoretically, as the demand for low -inclination satellites is becoming more and more vigorous, the closer the satellite launch distances, the smaller the loss of carrying capacity, and the lower the launch cost. Choosing a more mobility sea launch is worth paying attention to.

According to experts such as Chen Changbang and other experts, comprehensive existing launch plans, the total carrier capacity of the remaining stations in the next three years still has insufficient vehicle capacity, and it cannot fully meet the needs of the large -scale launching tasks of the satellite Internet constellation. The "China Commercial Space Industry Research Report (2021)" released by Zhongguancun Lingchuang Commercial Space Industry Development Alliance and Qian Xuesen Space Technology Laboratory states that with the development of commercial rocket models, the current launching field capabilities are difficult to meet the demand for civil and commercial space launch.

The national "Fourteenth Five -Year Plan" plan clearly proposes that "build a global coverage, efficient operation, navigation, remote sensing space infrastructure system, and build a commercial aerospace launch site", therefore The field resources are right.

Star communication technology gradually matures

With the accelerated construction of the low -orbit Internet satellite constellation, the topic of star communication has gradually been put on the agenda.

From the perspective of the satellite Internet industry chain, the satellite communication system consists of space sections, ground sections, and user sections. The space segment includes satellite manufacturing, satellite launch, constellation construction and other links. The ground segment refers to the satellite ground pass, the ground satellite control center, instruction station, etc., which can complete the connection between the satellite network and the ground network, allocate resources and billing. The user segment refers to various user terminals, including vehicle, airborne, ship carrier terminals, and mobile terminals such as mobile phones and computers.

Research data show that galaxies such as the interstellar links based on millimeter waves and laser communication are gradually mature, which can realize the constellation heavenly group network, which not only reduces the number of ground stations, but also reduces communication delay. In terms of key user terminal phase control arrays, a number of private enterprises have also appeared in China in recent years.

Gui Wanru, general manager of Hefei Joaton Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. told reporters that the large -scale antenna array and beam forming technology have gradually matured, greatly improving the end performance, reducing volume, power consumption and cost, and further promoting the miniaturization of the terminal. Internationally, mobile terminals are also under development. However, the rapid tracking, high integration and low -cost phase control arrays of the satellite Internet, as well as new high -integrated baseband chips, ground core network products and operation control management systems. There are no mature products in China and must be deployed as soon as possible. Experts said that from the perspective of the supply chain, Chinese galaxy communication still has certain dependence on basic materials, software and hardware core components, etc. How to enhance the autonomy of the supply chain is the issue of focusing on research.

Another thing that is worthy of attention is that in the evolution of the standardization of the ground mobile communication, China has achieved 3G follow -up, 4G catch -up, and 5G lead, which provides technical foundation and implementation experience for the breakthrough of the satellite Internet standardization. The relevant standardization agencies in China have not yet fully carried out related work such as satellite Internet standardization, which has insufficient tracking and participation in the tracking and participation of international satellite TV broadcast standards and third -generation partners plans.

It is the dream of countless "Starnets" to make the Satellite Internet application scenario directly touch the C -terminal. Lift your head and ask the sky, the Xinghe is brilliant. The journey is long and there is no poverty ...

(This article is reproduced from the "Looking" magazine, which aims to share the industry's dynamics. Welcome to read the original text)

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