Long March 10A
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Lihong-2 reusable flying vehicle. 3.35m diameter, 18m long, 108 km flying ceiling and can carry 7 people. Can be reused 30 times. Looks like space tourism is about to get a lot cheaper.
The goal for SpaceSail this year is to get 324 satellites launched in orbit. Providing navigation for Pacific ships, Brazilian farms and Malaysian country side and such.
I would hope that China provides a 100 billion USD loan/venture-investment to Landspace to accelerate all its plans. Landspace is the most credible of all of private players. I am simply not seeing the urgency required to catch up with SpaceX.
I just visited Wenchang and watched this launch in person at the tourist viewing platform. Very scenic with palm trees and the ocean in the background. The ticket is 300-400 CNY for the official view platform (there's also cheaper tickets for private balconies or free at the public beach, but you won't be able to see the rocket before it's in the air). You can also book a tour of the actual launch site the day before and see the rocket in person.
The HICAL commercial spaceport in Wenchang is scaling up crazy fast with the first launch only in 2024 Nov and scaling up to 9 launches in 2025. They are planning for 50-60 launches in 2026, so tourists should be able to consistently see launches when they visit.
Visiting Wenchang, I got the feeling commercial space launch and satellites are scaling up crazy fast. On the observation deck you can see a forest of cranes building satellite/rocket gigafactories right next to the launch site. HICAL is planning to 5x the number of launches this year.
It feels like Chinese EVs in 2020/21, where the supply chain is being built and maturing, and the industry is on the eve of breaking out.
Re-usable first stage will be nice to have, but I think China space industry will surprise people and launch commercial satellites at a similar cost and speed as SpaceX without re-use once the supply chains are scaled
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Agree on this. They have very big ambitions and are actually not far from achieving them. Definitely the most promising private player in China at the moment
That’s called picking winners. You don’t have a competitive system by favoring one private player over others.
GalaxySpace said it is involved in designing the 19th Guowang/Satnet Satellites batch that was recently launched. The second batch it was responsible for. 40+ of its designed satellites have been launched. The use advanced Aesa radar, MMW antenna, integrated electronics, energy and other core components.
Looks like GW constellation will be instrumental in 6G because it talks about the importance of Satellite to phone connectivity and fiber optics in Space with these satellites.
What exactly is SpaceX going to do that is so ground breaking that China needs to favor one player? If its so urgent to develop reusable rockets then CNSA should do it, Chinese PLA affliates companies should do it.
Moreover, SpaceX reusable rockets are barely 2-3 times cheaper than Chinese non reusable rockets. They can spend 2-3 times the money to achieve the same level of launch frequency if they so desire, right now!
Again the question is, what is the benefit in terms of national security such high launch capacity should bring?
There is zero national security benefit that SpaceX brings. Starlink is a joke in actual neer pear warfare. Those satellites will be blinded, then shot out of the sky or burned with laser within 2 weeks of a war between US and China.
China can afford to play this slow and steady. Once Chinese companies finish their competiton bloodbath, SpaceX will be out of the game just like Tesla is out of the EV game and now peddling Robotaxi and Optimus robots to keep up their stock price.
Elon Musk is a marketing fraudster who overpromise and under deliver and only deliver by taking extreme shortcuts that increase safety risks which only become appearent after a while. No need to worry about his companies.