China's Space Program Thread II

[NoetherSpudCharge]

Long Lehao did slip a 2032 in a presentation back in January (even if official statements in the past months still mention a 2030 target or "by the end of the 5 year plan", generally speaking, 2030 seems a very tight target given the planned construction milestones for the CZ-9 factory infrastructure at wenchang
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To be fair, Andrew Jones had sources in the 2020-2022 period which prompted him to quote a CZ-9 first flight of around 2033, so a 2032-2035 estimate would be consistent with that. I think the 2030 date is an optimistic (overly optimistic?) estimate based on best-case scenarios; perhaps circles within CASC are using an early deadline to create a sense of urgency whthin the development teams, like what Jared Issacman is trying to do for the Artemis program. When aggressive plans meet reality, delays may be the result; this has occurred for both Artemis and the Starship-superheavy programs (we'll see about CZ-9). Always good to temper optimism with caution.

(Addendum: the thought has occurred to me that there may be a possibility that the CZ-9 program may pursue a more aggressive development-through-testing process akin to that of Starship, so that "first-flight" may not necessarily come with an expectation of a perfect full-stack orbital flight. CASC seems to be moving away from the traditional conservative development process [necessitated by prior tech-backwardness] as seen in the rather aggresive February Max-Q plus first stage verification/controlled-landing test of the Mengzhou + CZ-10 test stage sub-orbital launch. If this is indeed the case then an earlier first-flight date is not out of the question.)

 

[Blitzo]

I replied to the wrong person. Meant to tag @Blitzo

Based on the existing CZ-9 first stage that is indeed the best depiction.

I do wonder where the aristists on the Chinese side are getting their 80m first stage from, if it's based off some information that hasn't filtered through to our side yet, or if it's just "we ball".

 

[Nx4eu]

Based on the existing CZ-9 first stage that is indeed the best depiction.

I do wonder where the aristists on the Chinese side are getting their 80m first stage from, if it's based off some information that hasn't filtered through to our side yet, or if it's just "we ball".

My problem with the 80m first stage is that we know the ballpark thrust of the YF-215 is targeted to be 200T. Whereas if the rocket was to be as tall as depicted from the Chinese side, the rocket would need to have 30x >300T thrust engines to even have the hope of getting off the launchpad. All in all making the whole thing completely implausible.

 

[Blitzo]

My problem with the 80m first stage is that we know the ballpark thrust of the YF-215 is targeted to be 200T. Whereas if the rocket was to be as tall as depicted from the Chinese side, the rocket would need to have 30x >300T thrust engines to even have the hope of getting off the launchpad. All in all making the whole thing completely implausible.

I had assumed a higher thrust variant of YF-215 or even an alternate engine like FY-200V (300t FFSC methalox) would be part of it. Not an initial CZ-9 variant by any means

 

[Nx4eu]

I had assumed a higher thrust variant of YF-215 or even an alternate engine like FY-200V (300t FFSC methalox) would be part of it. Not an initial CZ-9 variant by any means

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That’s a good explanation, and I don’t doubt the growth potential of CZ-9. However connecting the dots like this is wishful thinking and CZ-9 has never been described to be so big, nor has a YF-215 upgrade variant been shown. I have big problems with the original graphics from the Chinese posters because it’s a completely non-fictional representation of the CZ-9, while being labeled as “CZ-9”

It has now the internet thinking CZ-9 will be a monster rocket that dwarfs starship V4 which is absurd.

 

[Blitzo]

That’s a good explanation, and I don’t doubt the growth potential of CZ-9. However connecting the dots like this is wishful thinking and CZ-9 has never been described to be so big, nor has a YF-215 upgrade variant been shown. I have big problems with the original graphics from the Chinese posters because it’s a completely non-fictional representation of the CZ-9, while being labeled as “CZ-9”

It has now the internet thinking CZ-9 will be a monster rocket that dwarfs starship V4 which is absurd.

As I said on twitter, I think PRC space fans (especially artists) probably didn't think things would be shared so widely outside of the PRC side where the cautions are more established.

In a way this is similar to PLA watching of the 2000s if there was greater social media overlap and if there was an organic RoW military fanbase that were genuinely open to PLA matter back then.


I'm somewhat sympathetic to the notion that PRC space fans don't necessarily need to abide by the lack of understandings/caution by RoW space fans re PRC space projects, and if any of them do take the extra step to be more careful in their depiction that's more of a luxury than a baseline expectation.


More broadly one can level a criticism to all forms of art/visual comparisons/semi-schematic looking diagrams in context of social media like twitter -- the problem with pictures telling a thousand words is that sometimes they would benefit from not existing in the first place.