China Scraps Expendable Long March 9 Rocket Plan In Favor of Reusable Version (spacenews.com) 35
Rocket designers with China's main launch vehicle institute have scrapped plans for an expendable super heavy-lift launcher in favor of a design featuring a reusable first stage. SpaceNews reports: A new model of a Long March 9 rocket featuring grid fins and no side boosters recently went on display at the ongoing Zhuhai Airshow in southern China, prompting speculation that the long-standing plan of an expendable rocket had been dropped. Liu Bing, director of the general design department at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), later confirmed the new direction in an interview with China Central Television Nov. 7.
The new, current plan for the rocket will be a three-stage, 108-meter-high, 10-meter-diameter and 4,180 metric ton rocket capable of delivering 150 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), 50 tons to lunar transfer orbit (LTO), or 35 tons to Mars transfer orbit. The rocket is scheduled to be ready for test flight around 2030. Liu told CCTV however that the design has not been finalized and will likely see changes as the team selects the optimal pathway, while committing to the goal of constantly breaking through technological challenges and increasing its launching power.
The new, current plan for the rocket will be a three-stage, 108-meter-high, 10-meter-diameter and 4,180 metric ton rocket capable of delivering 150 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), 50 tons to lunar transfer orbit (LTO), or 35 tons to Mars transfer orbit. The rocket is scheduled to be ready for test flight around 2030. Liu told CCTV however that the design has not been finalized and will likely see changes as the team selects the optimal pathway, while committing to the goal of constantly breaking through technological challenges and increasing its launching power.
Meanwhile (Score:2)
NASA + congress doubles down on SLS, paying Boeing/Lockheed for "disposable" billion-dollars-per-launch rockets. Even a billionaire won't throw away their Rolls Royce after each ride. Then again they might, if taxpayers were paying for it.
Re: (Score:3)
"Then again they might, if taxpayers were paying for it."
Oh, and the taxpayer paid them by the hour, time unlimited, to build that Rolls.
Cancel SLS. Cancel Old Space.
Pretty sad when... (Score:5, Insightful)
the communist Chinese government shows itself more mentally-nimble than the US Government.
Elon Musk's SpaceX has now proven the reusable rocket model valid. The Chinese see this and are reacting. The US Govt, meanwhile, in the grips of corrupt politicians earmarking [generally, not in the technical Washington DC sense] budget dollars, has decided to spend over a decade and BILLIONS of dollars converting a semi-reusable space shuttle stack into a mostly expendable uber-expensive rocket (everything but the manned capsule on the SLS is disposed of, including the 4 space shuttle main engines at the bottom, which were reused on the orbiters, and the solid booster casings which were recovered and re-used in the shuttle system).
Luckily for the western world, while all of the big bloated lazy defense industry continues to make throw-away rockets and bill the government for the throw-away costs, all of the new private launcher companies are following the Musk model and going towards reusability.
23 Billion USD and counting (Score:2)
Boeing execs must be laughing their pants off.
That much free tax payer money and still NASA doesn't show any signs of backing down.
Re:23 Billion USD and counting (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Pretty sad when... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
the communist Chinese government shows itself more mentally-nimble than the US Government.
Not too surprising. China is essentially a benevolent dictatorship at the moment (at least towards those that pledge their allegiance) and these are usually more nimble than democracies. The only problem is that historically dictatorship often outlasts benevolence. Jinping is 69 and hasn't shown hints towards stepping down or grooming a successor. What happens when he starts going senile? Pros and cons...
Re: (Score:2)
The US Govt, meanwhile, in the grips of corrupt politicians earmarking [generally, not in the technical Washington DC sense] budget dollars, has decided to spend over a decade and BILLIONS of dollars converting a semi-reusable space shuttle stack into a mostly expendable uber-expensive rocket (everything but the manned capsule on the SLS is disposed of, including the 4 space shuttle main engines at the bottom, which were reused on the orbiters, and the solid booster casings which were recovered and re-used in the shuttle system).
The money is being spent to maintain the infrastructure for building such things.
The SSMEs were only reusable in the sense of requiring a complete teardown and rebuild after every mission.
OWLS (Score:1, Troll)
Instead of copying, why don't they just launch with SpaceX? Saves money and time.
We should be working towards a One World Launch System. OWLS.
Elon's megalomania will subside if we just let him decide who and what leaves this doomed rock.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if Elon wakes upon the wrong side of the bed one day?
A blue or grey logo doesn't matter (Score:2)
when it comes to launching rockets.
Re: (Score:3)
With launches from the US China would be unable to launch classified payloads, never mind transporting any bulkier payloads would be a chore and a half. Plus they'd be dependent not only on Musk (who'd probably take their business just fine) but also on US government which could sanction China by blocking them from launching from the US at a whim.
The alternative would be a SpaceX refurbishment&launch facility in China, which I don't really believe is on the table. Musk would be wary of losing industrial
Re: (Score:2)
Or they could steal/copy the SpaceX designs much the way the Soviets did with the space shuttle to create the Braun.
Re: (Score:2)
Would be pretty hard to get all that's needed. The metal 3D printer for the engines, capable of printing not just any metal but combustion chamber with one of highest chamber pressures in rocket history. Engine that can be relit at least 3 times and throttled down to 30%, and still provide the needed thrust. Software for guiding the rocket using the grid fins and gimbals of the engines to hit the pad; the precise relighting moment and thrust control to stick the landing (the engines even at the 30% have too
Re: (Score:3)
because they are smart and have had a decade to learn that it is unwise for them to rely on us technology.
mind you, i like your "one world" perspective, but as for now we're actually working in the opposite direction.
Re: (Score:1)
By working towards reusable launch vehicles, the Chinese are (now) ahead of NASA at least in intent. NASA is going backward to disposable rockets after already having the Shuttle. Which was only moderately successful, but perhaps NASA could have done better in a second generation.
Now SpaceX does it better. They already have partial re-usability with Falcon Heavy, and their goals for full re-usability with Starship seem at least plausible.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
YOINK! (Score:3)
once again China proves they are the global masters of the YOINK!
To be fair though, I think if anyone's going to give Musk a run for his money in the "engines manufactured per month" caategory, it can only be China.
And even if you don't like the ripoffs, right now we ALL benefit from more hats in the ring with the extraterrestrial R&D. The patent system's biggest drawback is the stifling of iterative innovation. It gives companies decades of time to sit on a new technology that others could be building
Re: (Score:1)
China might not even need to rip off current developments. Wikipedia has a list of heavy launch vehicles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicle [wikipedia.org]) where the old Saturn V still looks good in comparison. A competent rehash of that late 1960s technology may be sufficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Those old engines were marvels of technology. We still have a handful of them, but we can't make any more because every engine was basically "hand-made" with its own peculiarities. Each engine had its own big booklet of characteristics so they could be matched up. We still have all of the schematics but don't know HOW they were made, or how those characteristics were measured. And the engineers that were involved with that are dead or out of touch with it for decades, so in most cases there's no way to
SpaceX needs to beef up security. (Score:3)
Corporate espionage (Score:3)
I'm sure China has their best "engineers" working on this right now!
Re: (Score:2)
Yes and now all those bright Chinese must bow to Xi Jinping and his merry bunch of CCP Keptocrats. Their progress in the past is in the past, now Xi is busying screwing the Chinese economy in the way he's intending for Taiwan.
Re: Corporate espionage (Score:2)
Not all that much progress in 50 years (Score:3, Informative)
I just looked at Wikipedia and compared Long March 9 to the old Saturn V, SLS and SpaceX's Starship.
Long March 9, Saturn V, and SLS look similar enough on paper. Which is an embarassment for NASA. 50 years more advanced technology to draw from and not more performance that in the early 70s. To a price that appears to be higher that Saturn V even after taking inflation into account.
For the Chinese it is the first time they build such a large rocket, so it is understandable they need to catch up a bit.
Starship is a bit of an outlier, worse start mass to payload relation but fully reusable.
Overall, Starship is the only really interesting of the four designs.
Re: Not all that much progress in 50 years (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For comparison, Saturn V had 7.5M lbs of thrust, from 5 x 1.5M lb engines iirc. The Chinese are looking at building a 1M lb thrust engine, I believe.
Re: (Score:1)
Wikipedia says the Chinese are planning to use 23 smaller engines on the Long March 9, with a total thrust of 51 MN (11.5M lbs). Which gives them 23 potential points of failure, but perhaps they think they can handle one or two of them failing during launch.
So... (Score:2)
According to "experts", they can't (Score:2)
Apparently, they can. Sure, they can not now, but had they started a few years earlier, they could have now.