China's Space Program Thread II

[SlothmanAllen]

I cannot wait to see if Landspace is successful in building a reusable rocket. If they can succeed and scale their cadence I think Landspace could dominate the Chinese launch industry. China has a bunch of launch start-ups right now, but if Landspace gets ahead it will be hard for them to offer something competitive.

This raises an important point.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1983807319117893900

Basically, the US is almost completely dependent upon a single company whereas China has a growing "space stack" with multiple rockets, some from private companies and some from public entities. Without Falcon 9, China would already dominate space flight.

If LandSpace succeeds then it would overturn the US dominance.

I don't really think it does raise an important point at all. That post is basically saying if the US didn't have the best rocket it wouldn't be a leader. SpaceX dominates for a reason, they mastered reusability and scaled launch cadence consistently. This allowed them to corner the global market. LandSpace successfully landing a single rocket isn't going to change SpaceX dominance or trajectory.

Outside of that, the US has Blue Origin and Rocket Lab both looking to launch reusable launch vehicles shortly. New Glenn is getting ready for a hotfire test on its launch mount and is looking to launch in November. Neutron is targeting 2025, but it looks more like 2026 at this rate. If both these vehicles are successful that would give the US three reusable launch vehicles within the next 12 months. In the "traditional" space segment, ULA's Vulcan Centaur is also gearing up for another launch and has a large launch manifest.

The reality is that if Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and ULA all execute on their vehicles the US is actually in a position to expand its dominance in launch vehicles. This goes without mentioning the fact that SpaceX was just approved for an additional 50 launches per-year from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Something that they expect to have no trouble in scaling to meet.

 

[madhusudan.tim]

I don't know why China is so much conservative and regulatory freak. China’s regulatory reflex often swings too far toward control, even when driven by good intentions. Take Ant Group: the government stepped in with a sledgehammer just before its market debut. The goal was to curb financial risk, but the result was a collapse in investor confidence, years of sluggish markets, and a loss of household wealth, only for regulators to later backtrack to reassure the same investors.

Then there’s Space Pioneer. After a relatively minor mishap, (in grand scheme of things), its launch program was delayed by over a year. While SpaceX endured multiple fiery failures and still moved ahead, Space Pioneer was forced to rebuild a new test site under layers of new safety regulations. Meanwhile, its competitors kept scaling up next-generation launch systems while China’s regulators stayed preoccupied with making things “safe.”

 

[vincent]

I don't know why China is so much conservative and regulatory freak. China’s regulatory reflex often swings too far toward control, even when driven by good intentions. Take Ant Group: the government stepped in with a sledgehammer just before its market debut. The goal was to curb financial risk, but the result was a collapse in investor confidence, years of sluggish markets, and a loss of household wealth, only for regulators to later backtrack to reassure the same investors.

Off-topic and your understanding is totally off the mark.

Then there’s Space Pioneer. After a relatively minor mishap, (in grand scheme of things), its launch program was delayed by over a year. While SpaceX endured multiple fiery failures and still moved ahead, Space Pioneer was forced to rebuild a new test site under layers of new safety regulations. Meanwhile, its competitors kept scaling up next-generation launch systems while China’s regulators stayed preoccupied with making things “safe.”

SpaceX’s blowups are controlled experiments and there were no risk to people, while Space Pioneer had a rocket launched accidentally and uncontrollably near urban areas, risking lives of hundreds of people. If the Chinese government doesn’t step in to reign in the private players, then it is a dereliction of duty and gross incompetence.

 

[Michael90]

I don't know why China is so much conservative and regulatory freak. China’s regulatory reflex often swings too far toward control, even when driven by good intentions. Take Ant Group: the government stepped in with a sledgehammer just before its market debut. The goal was to curb financial risk, but the result was a collapse in investor confidence, years of sluggish markets, and a loss of household wealth, only for regulators to later backtrack to reassure the same investors.

Then there’s Space Pioneer. After a relatively minor mishap, (in grand scheme of things), its launch program was delayed by over a year. While SpaceX endured multiple fiery failures and still moved ahead, Space Pioneer was forced to rebuild a new test site under layers of new safety regulations. Meanwhile, its competitors kept scaling up next-generation launch systems while China’s regulators stayed preoccupied with making things “safe.”

Well, both countries have a different culture and tolerance towards risks and failures. The USA has a longer history of tolerating and even welcoming failures/risks in complex groundbreaking projects . They accept that it's inevitable when you are still trying to develop a new technology or edging something for the first time . So they understand ithat mistakes and failures like that of space pioneer are normal, it's part of the process. China by contrast is more risk averse. So any such spectacular failures like that of Space Pioneer will trigger a bigger response and lead to more regulation (which can be good or bad depending on how far they go).
I don't think any one systems is bad per se. They are each different, and have their own advantages and disadvantages. The only difference is that US tolerance for failures/risks could lead to a faster development cycle compared to that of China. Howver eventually China will get there as well, just maybe abit later. it's not something we can change, since it's something that is almost cultural and also a product of each country's history/system. There will always be advantages and disadvantages in each model.

For your part about Ant, I think the government realized the mistake they made. They went in too hard and even more so they choose the worse possible moment to do so(when the world was entering covid lock downs and all the economic consequences that came with it), so this gave investors a bad image of china's regulatory crackdown, eventhough it wasn't the case the case. Image is very important in business and investors will pull out and stay away from investing in a market if they view that market in a bad light. Anyway, the good thing is the government realized they funded up and had to take measures to reassure investors (though it came years too late), that's the most important thing, its not about making silly mistakes, its about if you can be mature enough to realise your mistake and then correct it. That's what matters most. At least the Chinese capital/private sector market is now recovering. Though I agree they lost alot of time with that mistake. The government could have regulated the sector much more better by using subtle ways and rules, than the heavy handed method they used. Hope they learn from this, and adapt in future.

 

[tphuang]

this is so funny. what mice have to go through to be picked as part of the Shenzhou-21 mission.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1984274070654095478

 

[by78]

Some high-resolution images of Shenzhou-21 crew training for the mission.

 

[by78]

Shenzhou-21 is up and away.

 

[ZachL111]

A Long March 7A has been rolled out to launchpad in prep for November 3rd launch. (launch will take place from LC-201).

 

[ZachL111]

Also here are some more images (not as high quality I will admit) of the launch.



Editing while I can as well, this is the 68th launch of the year for China, tying last year's record. They will definitely surpass this, so with the next launch this year, it will be an official record. As I posted just above this, we have a launch happening on the 3rd of November, and we have several more this year from looking at NOTAMs and other data.

Anyways, just a celebratory milestone, looking forward to the CNSA/CMSA/Chinese space industry's future.

Edit again, mission patch:

 

[by78]

High-resolution images from the launch of Shenzhou-21.