I agree, we should just wait and see. We should be seeing construction very soon so hopefully there is more info on what it's for.
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Lol it was never a tech problem? lol. Dude if it wasn’t China would have long been able to do it as well. Especially given the necessity in meeting their own launch goals with the Leo constellations they have which are lagging far behind their intended launch schedule due to insufficient launch capabilities.
space X b contrats alone launches far more than China and the entire put together every year now . We are excluding other USA SPACE launch companies . The gap is getting far bigger every year.
to put things in perspective space X is gearing up before the end of the month to launch as much satellites /payload as the entire humanity has ever done since we started launching rockets in the 50s . That gives you an idea of the scale spacex has achieved .
china is doing relatively well to be honest, it’s just that spacex has been so outstanding so much that it makes China or anybody else looks like a laggard/incompetent. It like you are doing well as staudent in your class and being among the top normally but suddenly a new student come to your class and surpasses you so far that it makes you look medicocre or normal. Despite your performance still being outstanding .
without spacex most people will be looking up to and talking more about Chinas space achievements today to be honest .
Don't get why you are so fixated on the English word "approval". China works vastly different from the world that you are familiar with. 立项 in most Chinese state programs simply means go ahead to construct the first article, the program has been ongoing for years and long been approved such as CZ-9.
here is a link from CNSA, is it official enough? It says the program is at full speed, but it does not contain the word "立项" or "批准=Approval". You can take whatever you want, but it would be crazy for CNSA to allow CASC to spend huge amount of money on something that CNSA has not approved yet, and "worst" of all CNSA is making it public.
There is a chance no matter how small, that the program got cancelled with nothing built, but there is nothing to suggest that, is there? And not hearing the word "approved" means nothing because that is nothing we expect before we see CZ-9 rolling out of factory. Example, do you know when J-20 was "approved"? We only saw it take off in 2011, but to this day nobody knows when it was approved.
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On the CZ-9, in addition to @sunnymaxi's info on the program being specifically mentioned in the 15th Five-Years-Plan, also recall that @TheRathalos had posted screenshots of documents about a month or two ago which detailed plans for new land acquisitons and initial infrastructure development in the southern sector of Wenchang (close to current VABs for the CZ-5, CZ-7, and CZ-10); these are almost certainly for the future offices, labs, and VAB(s) of the CZ-9 program. The first phase of the plan runs from March 2026 until March 2027 (with the final phase slated for 2031), although we may not see building structures until later. Also, we've seen photos from a couple of years back of test ring and tank structures with diameters of ~10 metres. Finally the YF-215 has undergone repeated test firings. So the program clearly is well underway (which explains the appearnce of the base CZ-9 models at trade shows).
On the CZ-10A/B, personally I'll be satisfied if either of them debuts this year (in accordance with initial plans). Sometimes it seems like deja-vu (or Ground Hog Day) in this thread when complaints are aired every few weeks about just how far China is behind the US space sector and/or SpaceX, and that it's falling further behind due to the inattention of the State. Well, China acutally is 60 years behind the US, which landed on the Moon in 1969 using in-part the Rocketdyne F-1 engine; and while SpaceX (also Blue Origin and Rocket Lab etc) has done impressive things such as reusability, Merlin, Raptor, Starships etc, it's leveraging 40 years of US rocketery experience (plus 30 years of German pre-WW2 experience). On the other hand, here's China's path:
-- before reusability and CZ-9, it needed to develop and mature cryogenic engines and 3-5 metres rockets based on them,
-- before cryogenic engines and CZ-5/6/7/8, it needed to develop rocketry infrastructure and human talent,
-- before new infrastrucutre/talent, it needed to develop its economy and the talent to train future talent, and allow capital formation,
-- before China could pursue "high quality" economic development, it had to ensure everyone has enough to eat + a basic education,
-- before a base level of food/education, China had to create the space for peace and stability,
-- before peace/stability, China had to end invasions, semi-colonization,
-- before victory over imperialist domination, China needed to value not only the "Classic Texts" but also the scientific/engineering disciplines and to cease sour-grape thinking which relied on the crutch of "Chinese cultural superiorty due to its 5000 years of history" ; also Chinese society needed to stop its casual oppression against peasants and women.
To my mind, that's the unredacted path of Chinese rocketry development; you have to crawl before you can walk. The situation is similar to people in the early 2000's complaining about the lack of Chinese aircraft carriers when the US has a fleet of 11 nuclear carriers. The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was commissioned in 1961 (trivia: Star Trek's ship and the reference that "there are only 12 like it in Starfleet" directly references the novelty and power of this anticipated new class of US nuclear carriers, which turned into the Nimitz class) at a time when China was just emerging from the Great Leap Forward disaster, and arguably China fell further and further behind the US for the next 50 years in naval development, but this does not mean that China will not be a peer blue-water navy to the US in the 2030's.
On the CZ-10A/B, personally I'll be satisfied if either of them debuts this year (in accordance with initial plans). Sometimes it seems like deja-vu (or Ground Hog Day) in this thread when complaints are aired every few weeks about just how far China is behind the US space sector and/or SpaceX, and that it's falling further behind due to the inattention of the State. Well, China acutally is 60 years behind the US, which landed on the Moon in 1969 using in-part the Rocketdyne F-1 engine; and while SpaceX (also Blue Origin and Rocket Lab etc) has done impressive things such as reusability, Merlin, Raptor, Starships etc, it's leveraging 40 years of US rocketery experience (plus 30 years of German pre-WW2 experience). On the other hand, here's China's path:
-- before reusability and CZ-9, it needed to develop and mature cryogenic engines and 3-5 metres rockets based on them,
-- before cryogenic engines and CZ-5/6/7/8, it needed to develop rocketry infrastructure and human talent,
-- before new infrastrucutre/talent, it needed to develop its economy and the talent to train future talent, and allow capital formation,
-- before China could pursue "high quality" economic development, it had to ensure everyone has enough to eat + a basic education,
-- before a base level of food/education, China had to create the space for peace and stability,
-- before peace/stability, China had to end invasions, semi-colonization,
-- before victory over imperialist domination, China needed to value not only the "Classic Texts" but also the scientific/engineering disciplines and to cease sour-grape thinking which relied on the crutch of "Chinese cultural superiorty due to its 5000 years of history" ; also Chinese society needed to stop its casual oppression against peasants and women.
To my mind, that's the unredacted path of Chinese rocketry development; you have to crawl before you can walk. The situation is similar to people in the early 2000's complaining about the lack of Chinese aircraft carriers when the US has a fleet of 11 nuclear carriers. The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was commissioned in 1961 (trivia: Star Trek's ship and the reference that "there are only 12 like it in Starfleet" directly references the novelty and power of this anticipated new class of US nuclear carriers, which turned into the Nimitz class) at a time when China was just emerging from the Great Leap Forward disaster, and arguably China fell further and further behind the US for the next 50 years in naval development, but this does not mean that China will not be a peer blue-water navy to the US in the 2030's.
Yes, you can check on copernicus/sentinel on the area China's Space Program Thread II , and see the week by week progress since late march.
As far as deep space exploration is concerned, everything is going according to the plan laid out by CALT in 2010-2011... An intermediary lunar launcher for the initial crewed lunar landing in the 2nd half of the 2020s, followed by a heavy lunar launcher for longer duration missions in the 2030s, the development of the intermediary launcher is past its peak (Wenchang just reiterated crewed lunar infrastructure at wenchang is expected to be completed later this year, CZ-10 is in its final phase of development), so efforts are being shifted to the heavy CZ-9 launcher, as planned.
Of course there is the question of low orbit applications of the CZ-9, that wasn't planned to the extent that will likely be needed for applications relevant to great power competition, and IMO the amount of investment going into it isn't high enough for that purpose, CZ-9 is primarily thought of as a deep space exploration launcher, LEO satellite launcher second.
There will also probably be credible efforts to develop a fully reusable launcher from SAST and Landspace, btw Landspace's valuation climbed from to in the past few months ahead of its IPO, this could potentially be additional financed billion of yuans going into the development of their SHLV...
Which satellite payload did they launch ? Or is it more like a dummy test payload?
The mission will be at an altitude of 900 kilometers and will carry a 2.8-ton customized experimental payload designed for large-scale constellation networking.
I see. So it’s a test load then. I guess the subsequent ones will be real satellites payload, since this one was more about testing .