No, it’s not. It was never a tech problem. Just the problem with risk appetite and financing risky bets and explorations. I refuse to believe that China still does not have the tech SpaceX ten years ago. It even has more, metal 3D printers, mature material science, precision robotics, and composite and carbon fiber supply chain which are now world class. But, what is missing is environment for private ventures to push boundaries. National teams are extremely methodical and always tend to perform based on 5 years plan, very good at it but inertia holds them down do deal with suddenly emerging paradigm, reusable rockets and SpaceX in this case. Unlike SpaceX, which did excellent marketing, got good financing, and had huge risk appetite, could influence national space policy and regulatory regime to further its development, quite the opposite is happening in China. Private ventures are financially struggling, just trying to take a piece of pie thrown at it. Space sector still feels quite the opposite to the EV sector which China is dominating now. BYD, CATL, Geely, Leapmotor, they certainly are all private ventures and were certainly not afraid to explore wildly. I think, Chinese government should throw a lot of money at innovative companies, a massive sum, to LandSpace, Space Pioneer, and few others, and let them explore more freely.
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
But apparently the source later semi-retracted this statement, so I guess we'll see what happens. If there is indeed going to be a launch soon, we should be seeing airspace notices in the next few days or weeks.
Funnily enough, they probably don't. China still doesn't have a full Merlin equivalent yet nor has any Chinese rocket even get close to the payload fraction of F9. Closest one was TL-3 and you can see how that went. All the current known reusable rockets from China suffers from low payload fraction due to various reasons like reusing a non optimised design or simply being overweight. Neither of those matters right now though because China still hasn't demonstrated partial reusablility at all yet.
For near future stuff like advanced methane FFSC engines, China is likely more than a decade behind with little prospects of catching up. YF-215 is basically just a Raptor 1 but arguably worse and even then it's seemingly struggling to meet it's development milestones for being flight ready by 2028. Landspace's BF-20 is a decent step forward being a bit better than Raptor 1 but still behind Raptor 2, though that engine apparently has no targeted rocket or roadmap so who knows how development for that is going to go.
LM-9 still isn't approved and from what I've heard, the higher ups just don't think it's important or worth the investment. So it's still somewhat up in the air whether they'll recieve final approval or not.
Given the tiny tiny amount of funding relative to say semiconductors and AI that China has been putting into aerospace despite their claims of making it a upmost important goal like semiconductors etc this 5YP. Parity as some members here optimistically predicted by 2030 is basically impossible at this point. IMO it'll be extremely optimistic already to hope that China can even fill most of their own launch demands by 2030 and forget about catching up with SpaceX.
Thanks for your answer
Rumor of a delay to July started a bit under a week ago, it's not just this guy.
Actually now some bloggers say the CZ-10A maiden launch with the CAS Space upper stage may happen before CZ-10B...
Current YF-102R is close.
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I noticed there's some interesting work on Air breathing electric propulsion lately in both public institutes and private companies
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Tianzhou 10 carried Synthetic Human Embryos, I don't think these have ever been studied in orbit. Also it carried a CH4/CO2 monitoring payload that will be installed on Mengtian, I think it's the first externally mounted EO payload on Tiangong?
And it also carried fiber made from regolith brought by Chang'e 5 that will be studied in vacuum
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bro please don't make shitty stories..
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The State Council of the People's Republic of China holds high-level responsibility for China's space program, acting as the ultimate authority for approvals and strategic, civilian-military integrated planning. It directs civilian activities via the China National Space Administration (CNSA)..
they have literally announced entire 15th Five year plan just last month.
This year marks the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The State Council Information Office will hold a series of press conferences titled "Strivers on the New Journey" for Chinese and foreign journalists, inviting outstanding grassroots representatives from various fields to share their inspiring stories of hard work and relentless endeavor. On the afternoon of April 21, at the first session of the series, five representatives from the science and technology sector shared their memorable experiences. During the session, Wang Qiong, Deputy Chief Designer of the Chang'e-6 mission, also revealed some highly anticipated new deep space exploration missions planned for the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
In terms of launch vehicles, China will develop the heavy-lift Long March 9 carrier rocket and conduct its maiden flight, significantly enhancing the nation's capacity to access space. These missions will further improve our spacecraft's ability to reach deeper into space and explore extraterrestrial bodies, while also advancing human understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system, as well as the origins of life.
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further details how Chinese space programs works behind the door.
LOL, no. You are the one making up shitty stories, there isn't a single official announcement on the approval of LM-9 project to date. Please provide even a single proper source that isn't vague and official, not a associate or individual making the claim, we've been hearing similar thing for years on LM-9 from various individuals, scientist, engineers and even academians, "We will develop it by XXXX", "It will fly by XXXX", yet nothing has come of their claims and last we've heard is that it's still undergoing approval.
PPT slides from this year once again says "Awaiting approval".
And AFAIK, the notion that LM-9 is too expensive to develop for what it is isn't exactly a uncommon opinion, there are some resistance to the project from 921 office (This is as far as I know, unsure about the others) due to them seeing it as excessively expensive for planned manned missions. Which is also why LM-9 scope gets increasingly large to the point of a Mars landing trying to get approved as the lunar program was unwilling to support the approval of the program due to excessive cost at the time.
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image from 2024 presentation. LOOL
all stories/dates/rumors before April regarding LM-9 is null and void now. since state council announced this. you are posting older presentation which is invalid now.
you said point out the single official announcement.
State council is the highest authority in mainland China. their decision is the final.
Wang Qiong itself presented 15th five year plan. he is the deputy chief designer of the Chang'e 6 mission,
In terms of launch vehicles, my country will develop and successfully launch the Long March 9 heavy-lift launch vehicle, significantly enhancing its ability to access space.
in April state council did a presentation and announced Aerospace projects in 15th Five year plan.
Government has already announced official 15th Five year plan in March.
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He isn't a official CALT source and basically nothing separates him from the many other individuals that talked about timelines and etc about LM-9.all stories/dates/rumors regarding LM-9 is null and void now. since state council announced this. you are posting older presentation which is invalid now.
you said point out the single official announcement.
State council is the highest authority in mainland China. their decision is the final.
Wang Qiong itself presented 15th five year plan.
In terms of launch vehicles, my country will develop and successfully launch the Long March 9 heavy-lift launch vehicle, significantly enhancing its ability to access space.
Until we see something more concrete given the ridiculous amount of "semi official" chaff on this matter, it is difficult to claim LM-9 has truly been approved.
The State Council Information Office will hold a series of press conferences titled "Striving Individuals on the New Journey," inviting outstanding grassroots representatives from various fields to share their inspiring stories of hard work and continuous struggle. On the afternoon of April 21, the first press conference in the series featured five representatives from the science and technology field sharing their unforgettable experiences. Wang Qiong, deputy chief designer of the Chang'e 6 mission, also revealed some exciting new deep space exploration missions during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
Edit - okay for the sake of argument. we should wait for more information about LM-9 but he is the deputy chief designer so obviously his words have weightage. @TheRathalos did post complete details about largest assembling facilities/launching pads at par with Starship. it seems project accelerated if we see these developments.
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