China's Space Program Thread II

[gelgoog]

I think Engineer's meaning is that reusability should be treated as "walk and see". "Red herring" refers to "missing of the key, loosing focus, drifting away from objective".

Reusability similar to the kerolox SpaceX Falcon is proven. It is up to 10x cheaper than a normal expendable rocket. Whoever does not acknowledge this is in denial.
I would say a methalox rocket should be even better. The Landspace ZQ-2 and ZQ-3 designs seem like good designs for example.

The problem is not reusability itself but people worshipping reusability as a religion and forget about what their job is for the rocket. The same misstake has happened not long ago by USA, namely the shuttle and SLS, creating a dream launcher and search jobs for them instead of building something to do a job. This is not my word, it is one of NASA director's comment on shuttle. Shuttle enjoyed the same fame as Falcon 9 and Starship and everyone including USSR and China wanted to copy or copied. History may not repeat exactly and VTVL rocket reusability may fare better than shuttle, but if people behave the same as before (means before purpose) then failure will repeat, and future NASA or CNSA head will make same comments.

Shuttle had poor economics. Not the case with Falcon 9. I still think Starship makes no sense though. If you want to do a Mars or lunar mission, a smaller rocket with a nuclear upper stage is a much better idea.

China would be better off cancelling the superheavy rocket program. Long March 10 is good enough. Then develop a nuclear space tug like the Russian Zeus.

 

[Tomboy]

Shuttle had poor economics. Not the case with Falcon 9. I still think Starship makes no sense though. If you want to do a Mars or lunar mission, a smaller rocket with a nuclear upper stage is a much better idea.

China would be better off cancelling the superheavy rocket program. Long March 10 is good enough. Then develop a nuclear space tug like the Russian Zeus.

Really? I personally believe that LM-9 would be pretty important to establishing a larger manned presence in space and the moon, could be really helpful to launch large prefabbed lunar base parts along with their associated ancillaries for the near future and theoretically it should be cheaper than multiple launches via a smaller rocket like the LM-10A. I feel like nuclear tug like the Zeus still is at least a decade or two away from being fully operational same with nuclear upper stages and China planned their lunar base to be finished by 2035, plus Zeus almost definitely isn't human rated and seems to be limited by Angara-5's carrying capacity while a LM-9 could carry a much larger human rated tug to space for orbital assembly for cheap and fast, practical mass transport to Mars for when they establish a presence on Mars in the 2040s.

 

[gpt]

China would be better off cancelling the superheavy rocket program. Long March 10 is good enough. Then develop a nuclear space tug like the Russian Zeus.

While I personally agree, the use of large rockets is primarily for economic and military capabilities enabled by low earth constellations and it seems China has decided it will pursue them.

You can argue that it will play a part in deep space exploration but actually one of the key findings of the controversial Augustine Commission which looked at US super heavy lift proposals for deep space found that it wasn't all that necessary. NASA basically hid any mention of distributed lift (using multiple medium/heavy lift rockets to do the job of a large one) from the report...

Btw, Russia actually put the Zeus project on the backburner to focus on

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as they realized it was sort of a 'solution in search of a problem' ie. too expensive per unit relative to the capabilities delivered.

You can actually do NTP without it being too cost prohibitive. Conceptually, NTP is scalable using a lightweight commercial reactor attached to your rocket nozzle, with directional shielding to reduce mass. Crew-rating the stack is nontrivial, but not impossible. If they're smart about it CZ-5/10 upper stage upgrades can go the extra mile in a lot of ways (Distributed lift of drop tanks of LOX/LH2 positioned strategically at EML1,L2, NTP upgrades etc).

So yeah, lots of efficient and iterative ways to do future space development but none of this addresses the cadence and mass to orbit side of things, hence why they believe they need CZ-9.

 

[nativechicken]

China would be better off cancelling the superheavy rocket program. Long March 10 is good enough. Then develop a nuclear space tug like the Russian Zeus.

In the eyes of Chinese observers, the CZ-10 isn’t sufficient. With its 5-meter diameter, its space capabilities are heavily constrained. The CZ-9 remains absolutely necessary.
China has long had plans for NTP (Nuclear Thermal Propulsion) technology, with technical work ongoing for a decade. Recent literature from the past 2-3 years has focused on concrete discussions about how to conduct ground tests.
Another point: your understanding of China’s capabilities and determination in space and technological domains is far too lacking.
As the world’s largest industrial nation today, China has correspondingly ambitious designs and plans for the future.
These visions and objectives already exceed most people’s imaginations—even surpassing many current U.S. plans.
China formally proposed in 2016 that it would compete with the U.S. for leadership in space by 2045. In reality,
current projections suggest this could be achieved by 2035. For China, the CZ-9 is non-negotiable.

 

[nativechicken]

While I personally agree, the use of large rockets is primarily for economic and military capabilities enabled by low earth constellations and it seems China has decided it will pursue them.

China asserts that by 2045, the construction of the Earth-Moon economic zone will require a two-order-of-magnitude increase in transportation capacity—equivalent to 100-fold growth in launch capabilities.
These advancements in space technology are not driven by low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations or military deployments.
Instead, China is developing these capabilities to enable ordinary citizens to spend three nights in a space hotel for $100,000 within 20-30 years.
Compared to colonizing Mars, prioritizing public access to space at this price point represents a far more urgent and pragmatic goal.

You can argue that it will play a part in deep space exploration but actually one of the key findings of the controversial Augustine Commission which looked at US super heavy lift proposals for deep space found that it wasn't all that necessary. NASA basically hid any mention of distributed lift (using multiple medium/heavy lift rockets to do the job of a large one) from the report...

The notion of "twisting screws in space" is a short-term pipe dream. Deploying monolithic, large-scale systems directly into orbit remains an unavoidable necessity—hence the critical role of the CZ-9.

You can actually do NTP without it being too cost prohibitive. Conceptually, NTP is scalable using a lightweight commercial reactor attached to your rocket nozzle, with directional shielding to reduce mass. Crew-rating the stack is nontrivial, but not impossible. If they're smart about it CZ-5/10 upper stage upgrades can go the extra mile in a lot of ways (Distributed lift of drop tanks of LOX/LH2 positioned strategically at EML1,L2, NTP upgrades etc).

China’s NTP (Nuclear Thermal Propulsion) research was initiated far earlier than many realize, and the technology is vastly more complex than commonly assumed—far from a trivial endeavor. China has consistently planned to execute NTP-powered manned Mars missions post-2040. Even before that, we may witness operational NTP systems in Earth-Moon orbital transfer missions.

 

[by78]

Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return probe has been transported to launch site. Launch is planned at the end of May.

Tianwen-2 is set to launch on May 29th (local date).

 

[by78]

The first Lijian-2 fuselage being assembled.

Lijian-2's first stage assembly progress.

 

[by78]

LightYear has begun applying its newly developed proprietary bulge forming process to the mass production of the company's 3.35-meter-diameter tank bottoms. The image below shows the first such tank bottom to be mass produced using the new process.

LightYear has just completed an even bigger stainless steel ellipsoidal propellant tank. This one has a diameter of 5m, making LightYear the first private company to be able to produce such a propellant tank.

 

[GulfLander]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1926973803248193662

 

[Michael90]

SP fully assembled TL-3
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When are they launching finally? Unfortunately their failed test launch last year really delayed them alot. For me there are the most promising private space company in China(maybe along with Landspace, though they have a longer history) looking at how fast they have been moving. Hope they succeed and ramp up production soon.