Wake upppp!! Its already 2026 and not a single starlink analogue is there yet. And do you even know about starshield? And how about the plans to knock out every single sats in space with offensive weapons? Have you heard about these things at all? All these methodical incremental upgrade mentality has built in a sort of rigidity that it can’t adapt to unforeseen events, like the rapid rise of spacex. And just one year is more than enough to have meaningful impact. Over securitization of every industry has crippled the sector. One company makes a silky mistake, impose blanket restrictions upon the entire industry.
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Speaking of Raptor equivalents,
LandSpace 220T Full flow staged combustion engine static fire
LandSpace 220T Full flow staged combustion engine static fire
If this is to be believed: (p.33)
It looks like the are on a good track to approval (after a couple unsuccesful iterations these past years), they will study the nose and tail of our solar system's stellar wind bubble.
It would likely require the launch of the in the next few years.
Then in 2032-2033: Launch of the two operational probes toward Jupiter, then flyby of Neptune and Saturn/Uranus (around 2038/2035/2042), then they'll reach the Frontal Heliopause at 70 AU in 2053 and 130 AU in the Tail direction in 2059
It looks like the are on a good track to approval (after a couple unsuccesful iterations these past years), they will study the nose and tail of our solar system's stellar wind bubble.
It would likely require the launch of the in the next few years.
Then in 2032-2033: Launch of the two operational probes toward Jupiter, then flyby of Neptune and Saturn/Uranus (around 2038/2035/2042), then they'll reach the Frontal Heliopause at 70 AU in 2053 and 130 AU in the Tail direction in 2059
Are they testing the Haolong resupply spaceplane this year?
If this "Twin Solar Boundary Probe" mission is approved, which appears very likely at this point, and if they stick to the 2032-33 timeline, then the Reactor Demonstration mission has to be in a fairly advanced stage of planning since the demonstrator would need to verify some minimal degree of in-space longevity before the Boundary Probes are launched in the early 2030s; this bears watching for the next two to three years. I think the reactor demonstrator is an extremely important mission for China since, if successful, the reactor technology likely will underpin CNSA's outer solar system efforts for the next few decades.
I was reading this article earlier, and I did some simple math in case people are worried, from what I have heard, China wants to launch 120-140 times this year potentially.
Assuming launches resume Mid March, call it the 15th, so next week, China would have to launch 11.5-12 times per month to hit 120, and 13.5-14 times per month to hit 140, with 6 or 7 more launches done in March.
This is exactly what happened last year actually, when they hit their landmark milestone, they had less launches up until this point, then later in the year, they ramped up by an insane amount.
Also looks like they revamped the design of the Kinetica-3 after some thought it was completely cancelled.
Monthly launch statistics for recent years
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If you've followed the extensive discussions here, the situation regarding Starlink—whether China has an equivalent, its current status, and progress—is actually quite clear. You can pretend it doesn’t exist if you like.
Let me remind you: many technologies, once invented, never disappear. If you look at things from a 5–10 year perspective, Starlink and similar systems are indeed ahead. But if you consider a 15–30 year timeframe, many of these things are just jokes and wastes.
I can’t be bothered to list other examples, but just take the Starship design—planning deep space missions with chemical propulsion? Any expert who truly understands spaceflight problems would only say one word: Shit.
The original U.S. deep space plan was to have genuine nuclear-powered spacecraft (dual-mode nuclear thermal + nuclear electric propulsion) enter preliminary application around 2025–2030. Although this plan may be delayed by a few years due to some issues, the direction is not wrong. The direction of Starship’s efforts is a disrespect to science.
As for something like Starshield, you’re overthinking it. China’s understanding of such things far exceeds your imagination. I’m telling you, many concepts in U.S. PowerPoint plans have ultimately been realized by China, while they remain just concepts in the U.S. Not to mention other fields, just take the solid-fuel launch vehicle-based rapid-response rocket system—China’s system is already operational. Where is the U.S. equivalent? Such a system serves dual purposes: civilian use as a rapid-response rocket (for emergency satellite replenishment) and military use for anti-satellite operations. China already has capabilities covering from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit.
Starshield is no different from many past U.S. orbital defense weapon programs, dating back to the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Brilliant Pebbles"). China has long been familiar with such technologies and has been developing them for years. The U.S. became aware of this many years ago, and it even made some news. If the U.S. deploys Starshield, it will soon discover that 1) it’s not very useful, and 2) its adversary has similar capabilities.
China’s current medium- to long-range missiles are evolving toward variable-trajectory designs that glide entirely within the atmosphere. Systems like Starshield are useless against these because atmospheric interception remains largely unsolvable (on a 20–30 year scale). Theoretically, the only system globally capable of intercepting ballistic missiles in near space is the THAAD system. The problem is, its operational effectiveness is highly limited—it struggles even against fixed-trajectory ballistic missiles, and the possibility of intercepting maneuvering missiles is virtually zero. Think about it: why was Iran able to take out a number of THAAD systems recently, and why are THAAD deployment positions so easily targeted (they must be placed in specific locations to be effective)?
Over a decade ago, I specifically studied the principles of THAAD (it’s quite unique and fundamentally different from exo-atmospheric interception).
Finally, let me tell you one more thing: China conducted extensive research long ago on the interception effectiveness of the "Brilliant Pebbles" concept proposed during the Strategic Defense Initiative (the U.S. once claimed it would deploy 100,000 of them to defend against Soviet saturation ballistic missile attacks). The conclusion was that it’s not very useful because the interception conditions are still quite stringent. Most deployments would be ineffective. To put it simply, the flight plane of a ballistic missile attack and the near-circular orbit of a satellite (or orbital vehicle) are not aligned. Therefore, orbital interception requires significant energy to shift orbits and align the interceptor with the target’s attack plane. The more you understand the actual parameters of interceptors, the more you realize why orbital interception isn’t very reliable.
Another issue with space interception is terminal homing—the interceptor must lock onto the target from an extremely long distance. The distances are vast (both objects are moving at high speeds), the field of view is tiny, and if the warhead employs special technologies to reduce detectability, the preconditions for successful interception simply don’t exist...
So, you can go ahead and enjoy your optimism. I don’t really care. In my view, the scientific capabilities of Americans—and the entire West—are currently lacking, especially among officials. Otherwise, something like Starship wouldn’t have won the HLS contract, and the Artemis Program wouldn’t be mired in today’s controversies and dilemmas.
Even without the problematic second stage recovery using Starship, starship heavy is quite efficient and powerful enough to put at least hundred tonne class payload to LEO. With this capacity, how much harder would it be to park offensive weapons on every LEO orbit, and knock out the valuable but few in numbers of orbital assets. For example, large aperture spy sats, SAR sats, Beidou sats, Spaces stations, and even deny the access to space? If you dont have equivalent capacity, you would be denied the access. Long term planning means nothing, when the rival is trying to knock you out before you gain your long term capacity. you need to have equivalent system in the very near term.