They didn't abandon it. They now have 4 drone ships and lands F9 first stages on drone ships several times a week. Most recently just 2 days ago, which is the 2nd one this month and 16 drone ship landings in last month alone. Whether they land on a drone ship or land depends on mission profile, payload capacity used and fuel requirements.
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
They didn't abandon it. They now have 4 drone ships and lands F9 first stages on drone ships several times a week. Most recently just 2 days ago, which is the 2nd one this month and 16 drone ship landings in last month alone. Whether they land on a drone ship or land depends on mission profile, payload capacity used and fuel requirements.
I stand corrected
This morning, camera at different positions around Xi'an capatured some magnificent footage of this CZ-6A's boosters & first stage separation.
The rocket is launched at 4.45 a.m. from Taiyuan, Shanxi. So these footages were also recorded around that time.
Doesn't it look like a giant sword in the sky?
4 boosters already separated, creating several lighter trajectories devided from the end of "the sword". Focus on the bottom left of the sky, you can see that from every video.
At the end of each video, the first stage separated. The 2nd stage continued flying.
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by78
General
Some images from the remote construction site.
by78
General
ArrowHead/Space Epoch has successfully conducted its first VTVL test. The VTVL test vehicle is a stainless steel rocket with a diameter of 4.2m, a length of 26.8m, and a take-off mass of 57 tons. The test lasted 125 seconds, during which the vehicle reached an altitude of 2.5km before performing a soft splashdown landing in the water. The vehicle successively performed eight tasks: ignition and takeoff, full thrust climb, variable thrust adjustments, engine shutdown, free descent glide, engine restart, deceleration to hover on sea surface, and finally soft landing on the sea surface.
The ArrowHead/Space Epoch VTVL test vehicle carried a 20kg Taobao package to verify the feasibility of using rockets for express delivery. The vehicle has a 120 cubic meter section reserved for carrying up to 10 tons of packages. The test showed the package was unaffected by the vibrations and motion from the launch. ArrowHead/Space Epoch will continue to cooperate with Taobao to further refine the vehicle's cargo carrying capabilities, especially for fragile goods.
