The FG-02 was a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

solid Solid is one of the State of matter#Four fundamental states, four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and Plasma (physics), plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount o ...

rocket motor A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accordance ...

burning

Polysulfide Polysulfides are a class of chemical compounds containing chains of sulfur atoms. There are two main classes of polysulfides: inorganic and organic. Among the inorganic polysulfides, there are ones which contain anions, which have the general formu ...

. It was developed by

China Hexi Chemical and Machinery Corporation China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(also known as the 6th Academy of

CASIC The China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) is a Chinese state-owned enterprise that designs, develops and manufactures a range of spacecraft, launch vehicles, strategic and tactical missile systems, and ground equipment ...

) for use in the

Long March 1 The Long March 1 (长征一号), also known as the Changzheng-1 (CZ-1), was the first member of China's Long March rocket family. Like the U.S.'s and the Soviet Union's first rockets, it was based on a class of ballistic missiles, namely the D ...

third stage. It has a total nominal mass of , of which is propellant load. It has an average thrust of with a

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust. For engines whose reaction mass is only the fuel they carry, specific impulse i ...

of 254 seconds burning for 38 seconds, with a total impulse of . It used

spin stabilization Spin stabilization is the method of stabilizing a satellite or launch vehicle by means of spin, i.e. rotation along the longitudinal axis. The concept originates from ballistics, where the spin is commonly obtain by means of rifling. For most sate ...

and a timing device to ignite in flight. The

is basically a

DF-4 The Dong Feng 4 () or DF-4 (also known as the CSS-3) is a first-generation two-stage Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile with liquid fuel (Nitric acid/Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine). It was thought to be deployed in limited numbers in ...

with a solid third stage and a fairing. So the FG-02 was developed as the third stage to add to the stack. It was initially tested on two launches aboard T-7A sounding rockets to validate high altitude ignitions. Both successful flights were performed on August 1968. Before going into the launch vehicle, the propellant load was increased from to . It performed just two orbital flights, both from

Jiuquan Jiuquan, formerly known as Suzhou, is a prefecture-level city in the northwesternmost part of Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. It is more than wide from east to west, occupying , although its built-up area is mostly located in ...

and both successful. The first was on April 24, 1970, to orbit the indigenous satellite, the

Dong Fang Hong I ''Dong Fang Hong 1'' (), in the western world also known as China 1 or PRC 1, was the first space satellite of the People's Republic of China (PRC), launched successfully on 24 April 1970 as part of the PRC's Dongfanghong space satellite prog ...

. And the second was on March 3, 1971, on the

Shijian 1 Shijian (, abbr. "SJ") is a series of satellites built and operated by the People's Republic of China. Some Shijian-series satellites have drawn significant concerns from the United States government and space observers who cite unannounced launc ...

mission.

References

Rocket stages Rocket engines of China Solid-fuel rockets {{rocket-stub

See also

References