What is the success rate of Yang Liwei before he goes to heaven? Qi Faren: I dare not tell astronauts that they will definitely come back

October 15, 2003 is a milestone day for the Chinese nation. On this morning, Yang Liwei took the Chinese step towards the stars and sea aboard the launch vehicle and manned spacecraft independently developed by our country. the first step.

my country's manned space program was launched in 1992. Before Yang Liwei boarded the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft, four unmanned launch experiments had been conducted, and countless ground simulation experiments had been conducted.

In the words of Chief Designer Qi Faren, "We have thought about hundreds of faults, and we have to find a countermeasure for each fault." It can be said that all imaginable risks have been eliminated as much as possible. .

However, every wise man must make mistakes. In the end, a fatal problem escaped the engineers' investigation, so that Yang Liwei experienced "26 seconds of life and death" during the rocket's liftoff.

China's manned space project was launched in 1992. It is said that China was not a country without foundation in the aerospace field in 1992. Before the reform, we had successfully developed intercontinental missiles and artificial satellites.

However, due to various reasons, in 1992, there were very few aerospace talents with practical experience in our country, and there were gaps. A group of veteran aerospace personnel who had participated in two bombs and one satellite were already in their sixties, and a group of College students who have just left school have no practical experience.

Therefore, after repeated deliberation by the leaders, the important task of chief designer of the manned spacecraft finally fell on the shoulders of Qi Fagen, who was about to retire in one year.

Qi Faren was the chief designer of the Dongfanghong-3 communication satellite at the time, and he was one of the main persons in charge of the Dongfanghong-2 and Dongfanghong-1 satellite projects, and participated in the Dongfeng series of missiles The structural design work of the Long March 1 rocket is a proper contribution to the two bombs and one star.

Qi Faren, who was already 59 years old at the time, originally wanted to refuse the organizational appointment. He felt that firstly, he was old and his energy and physical strength were not as good as those of young people. Secondly, sending people into space would be a challenge. It is a matter of human life and safety, which is different from his previous research on missiles and satellites.

Qi Faren once visited the Soviet manned spaceflight command site to visit and study. He knew that the chief designer of the Soviet spacecraft would hold a meeting with the astronauts before the launch, and the chief designer would convey to the astronauts at the meeting Confidence, assuring astronauts that "you will definitely come back."

According to Qi Faren's later recollection, he had no confidence in himself at that time and felt that he "didn't dare to tell the astronauts, just go up and you will definitely come back."

But at that time, he also There is no more suitable candidate than Qi Faren. Qi Faren was born in Fuxian County, Liaoning Province in 1933. He grew up in the Northeast during the Japanese occupation. From an early age, he experienced firsthand the misery of being a slave to the subjugation of the country.

After the Japanese finally withdrew, Qi Faren witnessed the "accidental bombing" of Dandong and Shenyang by American planes. From then on, Qi Faren was determined to serve the country with science and technology.

In 1952, Qi Faren was admitted to the Aircraft Department of Beijing Institute of Aeronautics, majoring in technology. In 1957, Qi Faren, who had excellent grades, was assigned to the newly established China's earliest aerospace research unit, the Fifth Research Institute of the Ministry of National Defense. hospital. After the Soviet Union's aid was withdrawn and everything was destitute, Qi Faren and other older generation astronauts created engineering miracles one after another.

Recalling his original intention, Qi Faren finally decided to take on the important role of Shenzhou's chief designer, "Since the country needs it, no matter how many challenges there are, we must take it on!"

In the older generation Thanks to our efforts, we have achieved proud results. However, in the field of manned spaceflight in the 1990s, we still lag behind the United States and Russia. Before we launched the manned space program, the Soviet Union already had its own space station, and the United States had landed on the moon many times.

When we launched our own manned spaceflight project in 1992, just like when we launched the "two bombs and one satellite", we encountered technical blockade from foreign countries.

China has a vast territory and abundant resources, and has the advantage of concentrating its efforts on big things. It is destined to be the main competitor of the United States and Russia in the aerospace field. The United States, which once promoted the Apollo program with national efforts, knows this very well, so Even during the so-called honeymoon period between China and the United States, the United States was strictly guarding against China in terms of aerospace technology.

This means that in addition to the general general direction in the development process of manned spaceflight, our country has to explore all specific things by itself.

How to find out? Just do an experiment. Under the auspices of Qi Faren and the support of the state, Beijing Aerospace City rose from the ground. Asia's largest vacuum tank, Asia's largest electromagnetic compatibility laboratory, and the world's largest shaking table have been built here... The purpose of building these is to conduct ground experiments as fully as possible.

According to the finalized timetable, the unmanned test flight of the first manned spacecraft (Shenzhou 1) must be "fighting for eight guarantees and nine", that is, striving for 1998 and no later than 1999 for the test flight. .

In order to catch up with this progress, Qi Faren prioritized the research and development of the spacecraft return system. Finally, on November 20, 1999, the Shenzhou-1 manned spacecraft was successfully launched and successfully returned and landed.

Scientific research requires constant trial and error. Of course, the Shenzhou team also experienced countless failures and setbacks in the process of developing the spacecraft. Superior leaders made clear requirements for the Shenzhou team: it can fail, but no astronauts must die.

There have been many serious accidents in manned space missions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Many precious astronauts from both countries have sacrificed their lives, and due to the nature of the missions, these sacrificed astronauts are often corpses. Nothing left.

In order to improve the chances of astronauts escaping in unexpected situations, Qi Faren designed eight escape plans at different altitudes.

And in several subsequent test flights, the Shenzhou spacecraft was also equipped with a "simulation dummy" device, striving to discover problems and hidden dangers to the greatest extent possible.

Countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union used monkeys and other "animal test pilots" during the research and development stage, but our country did not. The explanation of this by relevant experts is that the reason why the United States and the Soviet Union sent animals into space first was because Because it is uncertain whether animals can survive for a long time in weightlessness, and for our country, this no longer needs to be verified.

Moreover, the environmental control and life support system of the spacecraft are designed based on various indicators of human beings. The size and metabolic rate of animals are different from those of humans. Therefore, the survival status of animal test pilots can be used as a reference for spacecraft debugging. The meaning is actually very limited.

So Qi Faren did not arrange animal experiments during the test flights of Shenzhou 1 to 4 - in hindsight, this may have been a mistake.

The time came to 2003. In the past eleven years, the Chinese manned space team led by Qi Faren started from scratch and developed its own space system under the technological blockade of the West.

With limited time and resources, China’s manned space research and development team puts the safety of astronauts first. Engineers repeatedly considered the entire process from launch to landing and imagined hundreds of possible failures, and devise countermeasures one by one to increase the probability of success bit by bit.

Finally, on October 15, 2003, the day of the official launch of Shenzhou 5 came.

On this morning, before Yang Liwei entered the spacecraft, Qi Faren originally wanted to convey confidence to Yang Liwei in accordance with international practice. After all, eliminating the astronauts' nervousness would also contribute to the success of the mission.

Unexpectedly, the R&D team was comforted by Yang Liwei at the meeting. Yang Liwei said to the engineers: "Don't worry! As astronauts, we are all airplane pilots, and every aerobatic flight and take-off of the airplane will be our responsibility." Landing is a matter of life and death. We believe that there is nothing wrong with you designers. What we are most worried about is that we are not afraid of not completing our mission. Don't worry about it."

Morning of October 15th. , astronaut Yang Liwei entered the spacecraft, and at 8:59, the command center started a countdown.

According to vital sign monitoring equipment, Yang Liwei's heart rate remained at a very calm 76 beats per minute even during the countdown, which shows how strong his mental quality is.

According to data, the heart rates of foreign astronauts before launch reached hundreds of beats per minute.

At 9 a.m. sharp, the Long March 2f carrier rocket carrying Shenzhou 5 was ignited and took off on time. With a loud rumble, the powerful flames at the bottom of the rocket instantly vaporized nearly a thousand tons of water on the launch pad, and the rocket rose up in the rolling steam.

The most dangerous aspects of manned spaceflight are the two stages of liftoff and return. Space accidents in history basically occurred during these two stages.

In fact, just over half a year before the launch of Shenzhou V, the Columbia space shuttle crash occurred in the United States, and all seven astronauts were killed in the accident. Therefore, as the rocket took off, everyone in the command room became excited.

When the rocket accelerates into space, the astronauts have to withstand an acceleration of 8 g. This kind of "pushing feeling" is not something that ordinary people can bear.

Rao is an astronaut selected from pilots. When he first gets on the centrifuge for ground simulation, he is often overwhelmed and loses consciousness. Even Yang Liwei, a qualified astronaut who has undergone repeated training , it is not an easy task to bear this 8g load.

However, just like deliberately testing the first Chinese person in space, when the rocket rose to more than 40 kilometers, Yang Liwei suddenly felt a strong tremor!

This tremor was something that Yang Liwei had never experienced before in his life. It was not very frequent and not very severe, but Yang Liwei found that his internal organs, including his brain, were affected by this vibration* **Ming!

If the feeling of nausea and vomiting is that the stomach is churning, then what Yang Liwei feels at this moment is that the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys are churning in the stomach at the same time. What's even more frightening is that the same is true for his brain. Yang Liwei felt his eyes going dark. According to his later memories, at that time, "I really thought I was going to die."

Fortunately, he was about to fall into coma. At that moment, the vibration quickly attenuated and disappeared. Yang Liwei glanced at the timer and found that the total vibration just lasted only 26 seconds, but his subjective feeling was as if he had experienced a long nightmare.

This short "26 seconds of life and death" occurred during the time when the spacecraft passed through the ionosphere and the communication with the command center was interrupted. Therefore, when the communication was restored soon and the ground command center again saw the situation inside the cabin, it then The monitor shouted "Li Wei is still alive!" and there was a burst of applause in the hall.

After that, Shenzhou 5 successfully entered the predetermined orbit and conducted fourteen rounds of in-orbit flight. On October 16, after a 21-hour and 23-minute flight mission, the Shenzhou-5 return capsule landed in Inner Mongolia. Accurate landing on the landing field.

Yang Liwei left the cabin with the help of on-site personnel. Faced with people's concerns and inquiries, Yang Liwei said to the staff: "I am in good health. It is your credit that I can persist until now!" But there are some Attentive viewers who watched the live broadcast discovered that there was blood on the corner of Yang Liwei's mouth when he first left the cabin.

After taking a short rest, Yang Liwei immediately reported various situations during the mission, including the nearly fatal 26 seconds.

So what is going on in this "26 seconds of life and death"?

In fact, it is the vibration of the rocket body that vibrates with the astronaut's internal organs during the lift-off process.

During those 26 seconds, the vibration frequency of the rocket happened to be close to the natural frequency of the astronaut's internal organs. As a result, the vibration of the internal organs obtained energy from the vibration of the rocket body, and the amplitude rapidly increased.

The space weapon "infrasonic hydrogen bomb" described in the science fiction novel "Three Body" uses this principle to achieve the strategic purpose of "not damaging the opponent's equipment, but only killing the opponent's personnel."

After listening to Yang Liwei’s account of those 26 seconds, Qi Faren immediately realized that it was caused by the vibration of the gun. He said in a later interview: "Be it a spaceship or a rocket, , We are not afraid of low-frequency things of 8-10 Hz, but we never thought that the natural frequency of the human internal organs and the human brain is around 10 Hz. If you have such a frequency outside, it will vibrate in his heart. Very uncomfortable.

That is to say, our design was not well thought out, but the astronauts were not affected by this accident and successfully completed the mission. ”

The Shenzhou spacecraft R&D team immediately made improvements to this problem, and this problem never appeared again in subsequent manned space missions.

But as a space pioneer, Yang Liwei, he His body had already suffered a lot of damage in just 26 seconds. It is said that it was also because of this reason that he never returned to space.

It is said that the research and development personnel were in the process of troubleshooting the previous hidden dangers. They have been very careful, but because they originally studied missiles and satellites and had no experience in designing manned spacecraft, this oversight shows how important it is to think about the problem in another dimension.

Experience is gained through setbacks. In any case, the Shenzhou 5 manned space mission was very successful.

As the first chief designer of the Shenzhou series of spacecrafts, Mr. Qi’s name means "Beijing". The word "" means to start or start, and our country's aerospace industry can also be said to have entered a new stage since the success of Shenzhou V. It is good, fast and stable, with great achievements along the way.

Reference Information

Qi Faren: I have great ambitions so why should I be afraid of the stars? Hanyao CCTV 2022