Talk:Shenlong (spacecraft)

Edit warring

IP 67.188.1.213 has repeatedly edit warred this inadequately sourced edit into the article. Sundayclose (talk) 01:48, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Reusable Robotic Spaceplane

The phrase "Reusable Robotic Spaceplane" used to label the Shenlong's role in the infobox redirects to the page for the Boeing X-37. As I'm fairly sure there are more than two reusable unmanned spaceplanes in existence, might it be better to have it redirect to the page for spaceplanes in general (as is the case on the X-37's page) instead? 64.50.95.2 (talk) 18:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Article Redundancy

This article is redundant with Chinese reusable experimental spacecraft, which also has updated mission information beyond 2020. If there are no objections, in the next few days I plan to be bold and merge the two, likely under the Shenlong (spacecraft) title as it is more clear and easily-searched. 4thGalilean (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I've done a rough merge to this page Alpacaaviator (talk) 23:58, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I am from zhwiki and have done some casual research on Chinese reusable spacecraft projects, if you are interested, you can read my (messy) Chinese notes here. I have 2 main questions after the merge of this article.

1. Are we sure that KeChongFuShiYong ShiYan HangTianQi (可重复使用试验航天器) is ShenLong? Information on ShenLong are very limited, with only one singular photo of a prototype or test article of some sort back in 2007 (from the ones that I could find, all other versions are cropped from the same original). The official name of that thing in the photo seems to be "航空某型号重大专项跨大气层飞行器演示样机 (验证机)", or "spaceflight 'unspecified model' major project trans atmospheric flight demo sample machine (validation machine)", the name "神龙" (ShenLong) seem to have originated from the marking seen in the photo, and I can't seem to find any official source using the name ShenLong anywhere. Some Chinese websites says that "11 Chinese media reported successful test flight of ShenLong on 08-01-2011", strangely I couldn't find any. A local tv news screenshot shows a successful test flight of a "跨大气层飞行器" (trans atmospheric aircraft). I found lots of mentions of Shenlong citing "rumors" and "foreign media", but nothing from official sources.
2. Regarding the 2017 XinHua report stated in #Operational history, I found the corresponding Chinese version. They call the subject "可重复使用的航天运载器" (reusable spaceflight carrier), notice that it uses the term "运载器" (carrier). I personally find this weird, as we usually would just call it a "航天器" (spacecraft), this could mean (yes, original research, but see [1]) that it is a component of a two-part system, where a "carrier" would carry something (let's call it the orbiter) up to some height, then detach, carrier returns to ground and orbiter goes to orbit. (Similar to the "baseline" concept seen in the first picture in Space Shuttle design process) The Chinese version of the XinHua report also mentions "航天科技集团" (CASC). There are two big corporations in China that build things for areospace projects, CASC and CASIC (航天科工集团), notice that there is a "亚轨道重复使用运载器/亚轨道运载器" (sub orbit reusable carrier/sub orbit carrier) developed by CASC, with test launches in 2021[2] and 2022[3]. There is no information on whether CASC or CASIC is developing ShenLong/KeChongFuShiYong ShiYan HangTianQi, but it is speculated/assumed that it should be CASC (their stuff are more secretive). I would say the XinHua report was (probabally) not referring to ShenLong/KeChongFuShiYong ShiYan HangTianQi (2007 ShenLong leak doesn't look like a carrier, and the latter should be similar or is the same as ShenLong).

Sohryu Asuka Langley Not Shikinami (talk) 04:58, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I would recommend adding a section to the article with your evidence. I merged the pages since they had the same flights listed and there were multiple merge requests with no counter-arguments, but I am not an expert on the spacecraft(s). Alpacaaviator (talk) 18:38, 28 November 2024 (UTC)