China's Space Program News Thread

[gelgoog]

...
P.S. just for clarification, Falcon Heavy (LEO 63,8 tonne stated) is way more heavier than LM5 (25t LEO), a different category together with China's 921 rocket at 70 tonne LEO.

Totally different. You can't compare Long March 9, a rocket with 10m diameter, with Falcon Heavy which uses three rockets of 3.66m diameter. Logistics, logistics, logistics. SpaceX can just bring the Falcon Heavy rocket parts by road on the flatbed of a truck, while LM9 requires a barge to bring it to the launch site. Plus it requires completely different facilities like I said before.

I compare both rockets, yes, because Falcon Heavy so far has mostly been launched in reusable mode.
Which won't give you 63.8tons. Expect half that.

Falcon Heavy originally was meant to compete with the Delta 4 Heavy for DoD and NRO payloads.
As Falcon 9 basic booster performance went up with Merlin engine upgrades and stage stretches the numbers went up quite a bit. But it was originally meant to compete with a rocket like Delta 4 Heavy, Ariane 5, or LM5. LM9 is supposed to launch 140ton to LEO which makes it in the launch category of SLS. i.e. mostly useless.

Just consider this. The smallest LM9 configuration has more than thrice the performance of the largest satellites like Hubble. How many launches of Hubble sized payloads do you think you will see over the next decade? Let alone LM9 sized ones. Why do you think Ariane 5 does dual launches despite being much smaller? Have you ever looked at a chart of satellite masses? They are going down on average ever since satellites switched from chemical to ion propulsion. The average GTO satellite is like 4ton. Zarya is probably one of the largest ISS modules and it's just shy of 20ton (LEO). You can launch that in LM5. You could also launch Hubble with LM5.

 

[by78]

The new assembly line for LOx/Kerosene engines at the 7103 plant of CASC's 6th Academy.

 

[taxiya]

Totally different. You can't compare Long March 9, a rocket with 10m diameter, with Falcon Heavy which uses three rockets of 3.66m diameter. Logistics, logistics, logistics. SpaceX can just bring the Falcon Heavy rocket parts by road on the flatbed of a truck, while LM9 requires a barge to bring it to the launch site. Plus it requires completely different facilities like I said before.

I compare both rockets, yes, because Falcon Heavy so far has mostly been launched in reusable mode.
Which won't give you 63.8tons. Expect half that.

Falcon Heavy originally was meant to compete with the Delta 4 Heavy for DoD and NRO payloads.
As Falcon 9 basic booster performance went up with Merlin engine upgrades and stage stretches the numbers went up quite a bit. But it was originally meant to compete with a rocket like Delta 4 Heavy, Ariane 5, or LM5. LM9 is supposed to launch 140ton to LEO which makes it in the launch category of SLS. i.e. mostly useless.

Just consider this. The smallest LM9 configuration has more than thrice the performance of the largest satellites like Hubble. How many launches of Hubble sized payloads do you think you will see over the next decade? Let alone LM9 sized ones. Why do you think Ariane 5 does dual launches despite being much smaller? Have you ever looked at a chart of satellite masses? They are going down on average ever since satellites switched from chemical to ion propulsion. The average GTO satellite is like 4ton. Zarya is probably one of the largest ISS modules and it's just shy of 20ton (LEO). You can launch that in LM5. You could also launch Hubble with LM5.

Do you even read what you are replying to? What part of my post that you quoted here talked about LM9? Do you even know what you are responding to?

I am now convinced that you are deliberately derailing the discussion and moving the goal post, trying to avoid admitting mistakes but unwilling to remain silent, continue to muddling the water to save your face.

You are now in my ignore list.

 

[gelgoog]

Do you even read what you are replying to? What part of my post that you quoted here talked about LM9? Do you even know what you are responding to?

I am now convinced that you are deliberately derailing the discussion and moving the goal post, trying to avoid admitting mistakes but unwilling to remain silent, continue to muddling the water to save your face.

You are now in my ignore list.

I'll quote yourself "China's 921 rocket at 70 tonne LEO"
AFAIK only Long March 9 has 70 tons to LEO capability. Starting at 50 tons all the way to 100 tons.
So far I have only seen you spew verbal abuse at me and not refute a single one of my claims.
You keep changing the narrative and it isn't working.

You even claim Robert Zubrin doesn't know about launch vehicles.
You also claim Elon Musk is a zero when he has managed to claim the global commercial sales spots of both Arianespace and ILS. Clearly he must have at least some idea of what he is doing.

 

[eprash]

Guys please don't bring this thread down to the level of ladakh one, I respect both of your passion but history has shown us the Chinese know what they are doing it may not make sense at first or even look counter-intuitive but when all the puzzles come together we as always are astonished so please don't spam the thread with an endless debate, it's a humble request.

 

[Quickie]

I'll quote yourself "China's 921 rocket at 70 tonne LEO"
AFAIK only Long March 9 has 70 tons to LEO capability. Starting at 50 tons all the way to 100 tons.
So far I have only seen you spew verbal abuse at me and not refute a single one of my claims.
You keep changing the narrative and it isn't working.

You even claim Robert Zubrin doesn't know about launch vehicles.
You also claim Elon Musk is a zero when he has managed to claim the global commercial sales spots of both Arianespace and ILS. Clearly he must have at least some idea of what he is doing.

Cool it guys.

The 921 Rocket in recent times also refers to the new manned moon launcher that is said to be based on the Long March 5 cores.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

What We Know For Sure

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, and is designed to send 25 metric tons to the Moon, similar to the SLS Block 1, making it (barely) a super-heavy lift rocket. For comparison, that is only about half the tonnage that the Changzheng 9 was designed for.

The 921 is a triple core design, with a three stage central core, standing nearly 90 meters tall. Each core is about 5 meters in diameter,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

. Each core is said to be powered by seven YF-100k engines. The rocket is displayed alongside “manned” hardware, and is topped with a traditional launch abort tower, clearly

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

With a 25 tons TLI capacity, the 921 rocket is capable of throwing China’s new 20 ton crewed spacecraft to the Moon.

 

[gelgoog]

Thanks @Quickie !
I see. A triple 5m core rocket with LM5 core module diameter. It also uses existing YF-100k kerolox engines.
That makes a lot more sense than LM9. Never heard of this rocket before.

They will have to redesign the stages and fuel tanks. But at least they should be able to reuse much of the tooling, and much of the test infrastructure (I am unsure if they test stages standalone of just do some hold down testing on the launch pad). The transport infrastructure is also much more likely to be able to be repurposable. Plus this design is more amenable for reuse in the future like the article says.
This seems like a win to me. It should also have better economics than Falcon Heavy. It has less engines per module and each engine has more chamber pressure and thrust. Each module's first stage has similar power to the Zenit's. Good design.

The last stage seems kind of large but it is for a lunar mission profile I kind of get it.
This rocket architecture has the potential to replace both Long March 7 and 5 long term.
A single core module should have more performance than Zenit/Sea Launch because of the hydrolox last stage.
That is enough to put most commercial satellites into orbit. Would easily replace Long March 7 with 4x side boosters.
With the triple core they can put extra large payloads into orbit. Heavier than Long March 5.

Remains to be seen what will happen though. But looks good.

 

[anzha]

Friday, November 6

Launch Vehicle: Long March 6
Payloads: ÑuSat 9-18 remote sensing satellites for Satellogic of Argentina
Launch Time: TBD
Launch Site: Taiyuan, China

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[eprash]

Space for Landing legs?

 

[taxiya]

View attachment 65185
Space for Landing legs?

Sorry but no. Too short and at the wrong position. The position is the engine, not the load baring fuslage.

921 does NOT have re-usability in its plan even if it has the potential to be made re-usable in a future increment. But not for now. In that mode, 921 would not be used for moon mission, limit of physical law.

Besides, any heavy rocket aimed for Moon and beyond would loose too much dv/payload if made re-usable even if only the first stage. With re-usability, the payload to moon would be so tinny that re-usability becomes pointless. Don't be tricked by the big mouth of Elon Musk. He know what he is doing but only say something else to grab investment, after all he is a businessman first and foremost.