China's Space Program Thread II

[Michael90]

View attachment 176576

18-pack stack sat platform is undergoing test.
From lyman2003 via Weibo

Qianfan I guess?

 

[Michael90]

All I can say is that the Chinese government's long-term cultivation of public credibility is understood differently by the outside world than it actually is.

For us, the Chinese government is the type of country that deliberates carefully before acting. Either it says nothing, or if it speaks, it must deliver. So when I read literature, I distinguish which level of official or influential figure within the industry made the statement, in order to determine whether this is a national-level action and how much room for growth and credibility it has. I don't wait for the physical product to emerge before making a judgment.

Regarding China's commercial reusable rockets, I am actually not worried at all. I expressed this view long ago on NSF. China's reusable rocket program is not about creating a single tech giant (SpaceX). That model is actually unhealthy for the industry (just look at the problems Tesla and Apple have caused in their respective industries). China aims to incubate an entire industrial cluster. Whether this cluster emerges a few years earlier or later doesn't make much difference (the difference is at the starting point, where SpaceX has already claimed some orbital slots).

Whether SpaceX/the U.S. occupies these orbital resources or not is actually not a big deal. If China cares about this now, it's because China is still willing to operate within the framework of the current international order, abiding by the rules set by Western powers. Please understand: China has the strength to flip the table at any time. In other words, China has the ability to redefine the game in its own favor (whether on the ground or in space).

For true powers, certain things can be rules or scraps of paper. Right now, it's not China itself that is being pushed to flip the table. So under this premise, the pressure you perceive doesn't actually exist. Consider how the FCC has manipulated things against China in other fields, like the comprehensive exclusion of Chinese companies from future wireless communication standards such as 6G. It's highly likely that China has already prepared for the necessity of global technological decoupling. Once decoupled, all previously self-imposed constraints become unnecessary.

Thus, under this premise, the so-called competitive pressure discussed here doesn't actually exist (this is important).

Remember: China's space program has never denied the current leadership of the U.S. space program (officially, China acknowledges it will not have the capability to contend for dominance in the space domain with the U.S. until at least 2035). China's mindset has always been to walk its own path, ignoring external distractions, and act according to its own rhythm and established goals. In Chairman Mao's era, this was called "You fight your way, I fight mine."

In China's eyes, the future is not 5-10 years, but 20-50 years. The U.S.'s current space advantage is actually only about 10 years. Many of China's technological preparations are planned to overtake on multiple tracks 10-20 years from now. Being behind right now, and finding it difficult to catch up within 5 years—this has always been the honest truth. But once the inflection point is crossed, it will be just like how Chinese automobiles are now dominating the world.

Agree, but I think this sector is different especially for Leo constellations. Here time is of the essence , since it’s a first come first serve rule. Which is why the Chinese government is making space a priority in this 5 year plan and has been pushing to also register slots for Qianfan and guowang , so that spacex doesn’t monopolise all the best slots in Leo . So in this aspect China would have to urgently up her launch cadence and rate this coming years to meet up with their slots, else they can lose it and it can be reassigned .
For other space sectors, there is not that much urgency, so China can take her time and do her own thing at her own space

 

[Blitzo]

All I can say is that the Chinese government's long-term cultivation of public credibility is understood differently by the outside world than it actually is.

For us, the Chinese government is the type of country that deliberates carefully before acting. Either it says nothing, or if it speaks, it must deliver. So when I read literature, I distinguish which level of official or influential figure within the industry made the statement, in order to determine whether this is a national-level action and how much room for growth and credibility it has. I don't wait for the physical product to emerge before making a judgment.

Regarding China's commercial reusable rockets, I am actually not worried at all. I expressed this view long ago on NSF. China's reusable rocket program is not about creating a single tech giant (SpaceX). That model is actually unhealthy for the industry (just look at the problems Tesla and Apple have caused in their respective industries). China aims to incubate an entire industrial cluster. Whether this cluster emerges a few years earlier or later doesn't make much difference (the difference is at the starting point, where SpaceX has already claimed some orbital slots).

I actually agree that having a single lone uber-mega-provider like SpaceX is not ideal. However...

Whether SpaceX/the U.S. occupies these orbital resources or not is actually not a big deal. If China cares about this now, it's because China is still willing to operate within the framework of the current international order, abiding by the rules set by Western powers. Please understand: China has the strength to flip the table at any time. In other words, China has the ability to redefine the game in its own favor (whether on the ground or in space).

For true powers, certain things can be rules or scraps of paper. Right now, it's not China itself that is being pushed to flip the table. So under this premise, the pressure you perceive doesn't actually exist. Consider how the FCC has manipulated things against China in other fields, like the comprehensive exclusion of Chinese companies from future wireless communication standards such as 6G. It's highly likely that China has already prepared for the necessity of global technological decoupling. Once decoupled, all previously self-imposed constraints become unnecessary.

Thus, under this premise, the so-called competitive pressure discussed here doesn't actually exist (this is important).

This is blatant wishful coping.
Suggesting that "if China wanted to compete it can flip things in its favour at any time" reads just like an excuse of for why China is unable to do so immediately.

China did not have mature non-hypergolic liquid fuel engines until the last half decade or so, and it is only in the last few years that the technological domains feeding into reusable rockets have coalesced to start initial test runs.

These are technological and industry limitations that have existed, and while it is true that a lack of funding and political priority means that they have slow-walked the process in the past, it remains that those are still real technological and industry limitations.

Remember: China's space program has never denied the current leadership of the U.S. space program (officially, China acknowledges it will not have the capability to contend for dominance in the space domain with the U.S. until at least 2035). China's mindset has always been to walk its own path, ignoring external distractions, and act according to its own rhythm and established goals. In Chairman Mao's era, this was called "You fight your way, I fight mine."

In China's eyes, the future is not 5-10 years, but 20-50 years. The U.S.'s current space advantage is actually only about 10 years. Many of China's technological preparations are planned to overtake on multiple tracks 10-20 years from now. Being behind right now, and finding it difficult to catch up within 5 years—this has always been the honest truth. But once the inflection point is crossed, it will be just like how Chinese automobiles are now dominating the world.

The most reasonable way of saying it is that China has the ability to catch up and close the gap and even excel in it in future, but I most certainly would not write about it as if the conclusion is already guaranteed or preordained.

 

[ENTED64]

"In China's eyes, the future is not 5-10 years, but 20-50 years. The U.S.'s current space advantage is actually only about 10 years. Many of China's technological preparations are planned to overtake on multiple tracks 10-20 years from now. Being behind right now, and finding it difficult to catch up within 5 years—this has always been the honest truth. But once the inflection point is crossed, it will be just like how Chinese automobiles are now dominating the world."

What is your base that US's current advantage over China is 10 years? Honestly I though very close, and in some areas China is in fact more advance

In some respects China is very close or even ahead so it's not like an even 10 years across the board. In other respects however it is clear China is still pretty far behind. Consider the total tonnage to orbit, not launches but tons, as outlined in this post. It's hard to compress how far behind into 1 number because fundamentally it's a lot of different categories but I think if you consider all the facts from a neutral perspective, it is clear that the Chinese space industry is behind.

 

[NoetherSpudCharge]

Similar situations can be seen on NSF (NASASpaceFlight), where a group of fanatical SpaceX supporters—often called "internet man-children"—cannot tolerate any criticism of SpaceX. Their frequent cyberbullying has driven many industry experts away from public commentary. Of course, these issues have eased somewhat in the last 2-3 years.

I think the technical English term is "Tech Bros" (I know "internet man-children" is probably the result of running the English term through both Eng --> Zh and Zh --> Eng translation programs).

@nativechicken , you said here
"In China's eyes, the future is not 5-10 years, but 20-50 years. The U.S.'s current space advantage is actually only about 10 years. Many of China's technological preparations are planned to overtake on multiple tracks 10-20 years from now. Being behind right now, and finding it difficult to catch up within 5 years—this has always been the honest truth. But once the inflection point is crossed, it will be just like how Chinese automobiles are now dominating the world."

What is your base that US's current advantage over China is 10 years? Honestly I though very close, and in some areas China is in fact more advance

In some respects China is very close or even ahead so it's not like an even 10 years across the board. In other respects however it is clear China is still pretty far behind. Consider the total tonnage to orbit, not launches but tons, as outlined in this post. It's hard to compress how far behind into 1 number because fundamentally it's a lot of different categories but I think if you consider all the facts from a neutral perspective, it is clear that the Chinese space industry is behind.

The gap is roughly 10 and 3/4 years going by the metric of achieving reusability, and can be either more or less than that depending on how fast Chinese launch providers can get to a high(er) launch cadence and tonnage delivered to orbit (by both reusable and expendable vehicles). The gap is about 8 years on FFSB (full-flow staged combustion) engines if you count the elapsed time between the initial hot-fire test date (2016) of SpaceX's first sub-scale Raptor and LandSpace's 2024 hot-fire test of its 220 tonnes class FFSB engine (the first hot-fire test of YF-215 was last year I believe); of course, the fact that China has multiple FFSB engines in advanced development should shrink the assessed tech gap if one wants to be fair. If you use the metric of using specialized launchers for different orbital regimes and payload capcaties as a means to control costs etc, China may be slightly ahead currently (US + G7 has a series of small, mid, heavy, and super-heavy-lift launchers in various stages of development, so does China). Using the metric of the rationality of the long-term direction of the respective space programs, my opinion is that China has the edge, partly based on some of the info provided by NativeChicken ("Turkey" in Chinese?), but I'm sure many people would disagree (e.g. tech bros and those who bought SpaceX shares last Friday).