China's Space Program News Thread

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gelgoog

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H2O said:
I see space planes as an alternative to reusable rockets. It's only a boondoggle if they didn't learn from NASA's mistakes with the STS. However, there is the optics to consider. Space junk floating in space and landing in residential areas (even with pre-warnings) isn't a good thing. Also, there's a good chance the model you see won't be the same as the end product.

Although the 2-ton maximum payload is too low, should this method become viable, it might pave the way for other variants with greater capacity.
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Just look at it. Two new vehicles and two or three new engine types. Next to no payload.
This will cost around $20-30 billion to develop. If they get it to work at all.
That is about the cost of the Beijing-Shanghai HSR.
It makes no sense.

For reference's sake a new launch vehicle like the Ariane 5 or Long March 5 costs like $8 billion to develop.
The payload it can launch is like 10 tons.

Also, Falcon 9 Heavy took like $1-2 billion to develop because the engines are simpler and you have a common engine core.
The outer structure on both stages is also similar.
 
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H2O

Junior Member
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gelgoog said:
Just look at it. Two new vehicles and two or three new engine types. Next to no payload.
This will cost around $20-30 billion to develop. If they get it to work at all.
It makes no sense.
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On the contrary, it does make sense. Just recently, there was a bit of a scare of a 'conjunction' on the latest SpaceX mission. Since China is going to have a few high profile assets in LEO, it's in China's best interest to find alternative ways to minimize junk when going to Space.

Perhaps the level of confidence among engineers, industry and more importantly, policy makers, are much higher now. I understand incremental change is China's preferred method as oppose to leaps and bounds that the US favors. I suspect this idea have been bouncing around in China for some time and likely given a low priority in development. I would not be surprised that someone quietly worked on this idea.

There's no mention (or perhaps I missed it) on what the turn around time is; only maximum of times it can be used. The next question is what is limited to 100 launches, the mini-shuttle on top or the carrier.

Regarding the development costs, sometimes you got to spend money to make money.

On the flip side, that presentation could just be someone thinking aloud and throwing out the idea to the general public for a response. We've seen plenty of examples like in the Zhuhai airshow.
 
by78

by78

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Private launch vehicle company i-Space (a.k.a. Space Honor, Interstellar Glory) has successfully completed a test of the onboard control system of the reusable Hyperbola-2 rocket. The test lasted 500 seconds and verified the performance of the StarMotion-1 (星动一号) engine controller.

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by78

by78

General
The NEO-01 satellite from Shenzhen based private company Space Origin, which focuses on developing technologies for astroid mining and exploiting other space resources. The NEO-01 represents the company's first iteration of space mining designs, and it will be launched sometime today. It will carry out technological and engineering verifications by collecting space junk in the low earth orbit.

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ougoah

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escobar said:
CN commercial remote sensing capabilities vs US. From US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1387070922398519304
View attachment 71441
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China's Synthetic Aperture Radar details are kept under plenty of wraps but I doubt it's less than silver if not gold.

No details provided so not showing in SAR comparisons. It's identified as one of the more important aspects for military and commercial tasks. There's no way China hasn't been developing to lead in SAR for a good decade or more already.

Gaofen series, Jilin series, Yaogan series... these are just the publicly disclosed known series that have involved SAR. China's got one of the most comprehensive network of remote viewing, second only to the US. These satellites can detect mm accurate changes to a structure on the surface. There's no way this isn't a tightly secretive field. Anyway, surprised even the publicly known info doesn't make China an easy second here. No country I can think of even comes half way close to China in terms of numbers and overall SAR tech (not counting US of course). I think China's got more SAR satellites than India has satellites in orbit. But GNS types are definitely the most strategically important. Compass easily is the most modern and capable (until GPS completes upgrades). Compass constellation is China's greatest useful asset in space and the most impressive. If one looks into Compass (Beidou), it's truly the crown jewels of the space "force" and an exceptionally impressive achievement. From the software and on ground equipment to the satellites themselves.

Also very impressed by Argentina overall and India for MWIR. Is this MWIR field sort of obsolete and ignored by the west for some reason? Also does HSI make MSI irrelevant?
 
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escobar

escobar

Brigadier
ougoah said:
China's Synthetic Aperture Radar details are kept under plenty of wraps but I doubt it's less than silver if not gold.

No details provided so not showing in SAR comparisons. It's identified as one of the more important aspects for military and commercial tasks. There's no way China hasn't been developing to lead in SAR for a good decade or more already.

Gaofen series, Jilin series, Yaogan series... these are just the publicly disclosed known series that have involved SAR. China's got one of the most comprehensive network of remote viewing, second only to the US. These satellites can detect mm accurate changes to a structure on the surface. There's no way this isn't a tightly secretive field. Anyway, surprised even the publicly known info doesn't make China an easy second here. No country I can think of even comes half way close to China in terms of numbers and overall SAR tech (not counting US of course). I think China's got more SAR satellites than India has satellites in orbit. But GNS types are definitely the most strategically important. Compass easily is the most modern and capable (until GPS completes upgrades). Compass constellation is China's greatest useful asset in space and the most impressive. If one looks into Compass (Beidou), it's truly the crown jewels of the space "force" and an exceptionally impressive achievement. From the software and on ground equipment to the satellites themselves.

Also very impressed by Argentina overall and India for MWIR. Is this MWIR field sort of obsolete and ignored by the west for some reason? Also does HSI make MSI irrelevant?
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CN has many SAR sats but this assessment is about commercial capabilities.
CN first commercial SAR satellites launches was recent ( Hisea-1 C-band SAR in Dec 2020 and Qilu-1 this month). US has more established commercial SAR company (Capella Space).
 
O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
escobar said:
CN has many SAR sats but this assessment is about commercial capabilities.
CN first commercial SAR satellites launches was recent ( Hisea-1 C-band SAR in Dec 2020 and Qilu-1 this month). US has more established commercial SAR company (Capella Space).
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I wonder if the SAR sats prior to those "commercial" ones were accessible for commercial purposes. It's a relatively new field that's now become more commercially useful these days for various industries as opposed to almost purely military and academic in the past. I believe the state only SAR sats could have been accessible to the right organisations/people in China with granted use from the state. I doubt potential users had to wait until now to access SAR feed only after formally commercial units were launched.

But for the purposes of that ranking, it makes sense then that China's not included. All its SAR sats were state owned and operated.
 
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