China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
According to Cute Orca:
At stage separation:
1800m/s
60km altitude
First stage apogee: 110km
Compared to typical Falcon 9 Block 5 mission:
2200m/s
65km altitude
130km apogee
Given similar delta-V to orbit, proportionally CZ-10B's first stage is smaller than Falcon 9's first stage and vice versa for upper stage. So a bigger first stage in CZ-10C would definitely be beneficial since you are reusing it and expending the upper stage.
At stage separation:
1800m/s
60km altitude
First stage apogee: 110km
Compared to typical Falcon 9 Block 5 mission:
2200m/s
65km altitude
130km apogee
Given similar delta-V to orbit, proportionally CZ-10B's first stage is smaller than Falcon 9's first stage and vice versa for upper stage. So a bigger first stage in CZ-10C would definitely be beneficial since you are reusing it and expending the upper stage.
First stage smaller？？
Delta V is a function of dry mass and wet mass ratio, CZ-10 is highly unoptimised compared to Falcon 9 so even if the the first stage contains a similar amount of fuel, the total delta V you can get from it is much less. Also CZ-10 uses traditional fuel tanks and hence wastes alot of space and weight compared to Falcon 9 making the problem worse.
are they building better versions of it?
You could expect CZ-10C, it is 91m high and has a 940-ton take-off weight.
Another view of the landing. In this one you can clearly see the smoke only started to come out of the interstage shortly before the stage landed.
It's not abnormal for revisions and improvements to a rocket family or variant to occur over time.
So chances are as they launch and recover a few more times they'll implement minor improvements to new build rocket first stages.
Yes, though that should be considered a wholly separate variant.
CZ-10C will exist alongside CZ-10A/B.
