China's Space Program Thread II

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OrienSpace has unveiled a new engine at Zhuhai Airshow: Force-110 (原力-110) LOX/Kerosene engine. Specs are as follow:

Thrust (sea-level): 110 tons
Specific impulse (sea-level): 285s
Thrust (vacuum): 122 tons
Specific impulse (vacuum): 313s
Thrust adjustment range: 40 to 110%
Thrust-to-weight ratio of 170

 

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Tianhui's booth at Zhuhai Airshow, where the company showed off scale models of its three engines.

More images from Tianhui's booth at Zhuhai.

 

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Galactic Energy's Ceres-2 breaks cover (second from the left). It has a diameter of 2.6m.

Galatic Energy debuts Ceres-2 and Pallas-2 launch vehicles at Zhuhai Airshow.

Ceres-2 is a 100-ton four-stage commercial launch vehicle:
– Three solid stages + Liquid upper stage
– Fairing diameter: 2.35m or 2.9m
– Take-off weight: 98 tons
– Payload capacity: 1.6 tons to LEO

Pallas-2 heavy reusable launch vehicle:
– Diameter: 3.8m
– Length: 66m
– Fairing diameter: 5.2m
– Takeoff weight: 1196 tons
– Takeoff thrust: 1600 tons
– Payload capacity: 30 tons to LEO (@200km)
– Optional Eros upper stage for deep space exploration

 

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Tianzhou-8 cargo spacecraft, which was successfully launched an hour ago, carried bricks made of 'replica' lunar soil. These bricks are produced based on the composition of real lunar soil samples. They will be exposed to the space environment in order to study their mechanical, thermal, and radiation-shielding properties. The purpose is to verify whether they are suitable for use as construction material for China's future lunar bases.

 

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According to an

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, CASC has decided to re-organize its efforts in the commercial launch market by bolstering the R&D and production capabilities of the China Rocket Corporation, its existing commercial launch subsidiary.

CASC will now shift all personnel related to commercial launch services to the China Rocket Corp, which will effectively acquire independent R&D and production capabilities to better compete with new private launch startups. This reorganization is being done in response to the expected fierce competition in the next three to five years.

The press release also mentioned that Jielong-4 will have its maiden launch this year.

CASC's reorganized Commercial Launch Vehicle company is officially established. It's headquartered in Shanghai

 

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LandSpace displays its Zhuque-2 rocket and TQ-12 engine at Zhuhai.

A better image of the TQ-12 engine.

 

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Ignition tests of Lijian-2's 1st-stage engines have been

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. Full-system test runs will begin toward the end of this year.

Zhongke/CAS Space has successfully carried out tests of the pre-cooling system for the Lijian-2 launch vehicle.

 

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A mobile satellite ground control station developed to meet the needs for cost-effective ground control equipment for large LEO constellations.

 

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Deep Blue will carry out a chopstick recovery tests next year. From February to April, it plans to carry out a 100km-level recovery test using the chopstick method and then an orbital recovery using the same method, becoming the second in the world to use chopstick recovery on an orbital launch.

 

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More detailed information on the manned lunar rover project. After two rounds of expert assessment of various submitted proposals, two designs have been chosen for prototype development. One is being developed by Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) and the other by a subsidiary of CASC. The two prototypes will be pitted again each other, and the winner will be sent to the moon. China Manned Space Agency is now soliciting the public for names for the manned rover.

Do you know whose design is which of the images?

The first two images are from SAST and the last two are from CASC.