On the afternoon of the 17th, the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, China, successfully conducted a zero-altitude escape flight test for the 'Dream Boat' manned spacecraft. This marks the first such test organized in 27 years since the Shenzhou manned spacecraft in 1998. 'Dream Boat' is a reusable manned spacecraft developed by China, intended for manned missions in low-Earth orbit and manned lunar missions.
At 12:30 PM on the 17th, the escape engine of the 'Dream Boat' spacecraft successfully ignited, and the spacecraft-tower assembly shot upward. About 20 seconds later, it reached its predetermined altitude, after which the return module safely separated from the escape tower, and the parachute deployed smoothly. Two minutes later, the return module safely landed in the designated test area.
The China Manned Space Engineering Office stated on its WeChat official account that compared to the Shenzhou spacecraft, the new system changes the previous model of 'rocket responsible for escape, spacecraft responsible for rescue.' Instead, the 'Dream Boat' manned spacecraft system assumes overall responsibility for both escape and rescue tasks. The test comprehensively assessed the escape and rescue subsystem and other related major systems of the 'Dream Boat' spacecraft while also verifying the design accuracy and compatibility of the escape sequence, escape separation, and escape trajectory closed-loop control, and obtained real test parameters for escape scenarios.
According to the China Manned Space Engineering website, escape system flight tests generally fall into two categories: zero-altitude escape tests and maximum dynamic pressure escape tests. 'Zero altitude' refers to a scenario where the initial altitude and velocity are both zero.
The China Manned Space Engineering Office also stated that the 'Dream Boat' manned spacecraft is a completely independently developed new generation of manned space-Earth round-trip transport vehicle for future manned space missions. The spacecraft uses a modular design and can accommodate up to seven astronauts.