Surely not? Tianzhou are not intended to survive re-entry?
China's Space Program News Thread
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Something like this:
An attachment to the spacecraft. I'm speculating if they're testing this for that application in the future.
It seems the next gen spacecraft will be attached on top of 921 moon rocket using some sort of fairing that cover the service module and protect the solar panels during launch. The fairing also has Launch Abort System (LAS) attached to it.
After launch it will discard the fairing and extend the solar panels
We might see this LAS in pad abort test in a few years and then the first crewed mission for the Next Gen Spacecraft might be a visit to the Space Station in LEO configuration while being launched by LM-7.
Since LM-7 can only launch the 14-ton version I think there will be two different versions of the fairing for LM-7 and the 921 moon rocket respectively.
After launch it will discard the fairing and extend the solar panels
We might see this LAS in pad abort test in a few years and then the first crewed mission for the Next Gen Spacecraft might be a visit to the Space Station in LEO configuration while being launched by LM-7.
Since LM-7 can only launch the 14-ton version I think there will be two different versions of the fairing for LM-7 and the 921 moon rocket respectively.
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If its about simplicity
The CZ-7 was meant to be a simple re-engine of the CZ-3 didn't turn out that way when they actually started looking at it and it turned into a whole new launcher.
If its about economics
All the engines you mention already exist and are proven so the R&D cost is sunk, production facilities exist and are paid for so that's sunk cost too, what would the ROI be to develop a common methane engine and integrate it into new launchers for mass production? Can it be achieved in the requisite time scales? i.e. does it fit with the goals of the space program?
Current systems provide the necessary capabilities for the projects in hand so looking into the next phase.
What kind of lift capability is needed to build a moon base does a new methane engine development cycle help that at all? or would scaling up the YF-77 provide what's needed? What's the relative risks and time to realisation of both approaches?
If the answers to any of those questions is in the negative then it won't really happen in the current development cycles because it provides no actual real world benefits.
Unfortunately, the real world often intrudes on sound ideas which is why we're nowhere near having world peace!
It would be different for commercial Chinese companies (the actual equivalents to SpaceX) which would come to things with a cleaner slate/more greenfield starting point.
That said Western media likes to hype Space-X and Blue Origin because successive administrations have royally screwed NASA over and having to pay the Russians to use Soyuz and use Russian engines in their heavy lift boosters doesn,t gel well with the 'we are the best' news fodder you can feed your populace. So when those fledgling Chinese commercial companies' prototypes start blowing up like starship there will be the usual 'Chinese made crap' narrative and spray painting of Space-X's failures.
Except it seems to be in consideration. Just look at the last slide @Dante80 posted.
That is clearly a proposal to replace the first stages of all those rockets.
With regards to US "commercial space" companies, SpaceX has proven itself. Blue Origin has not. For what it's worth Blue Origin (2000) was founded before SpaceX (2002). Yet they still haven't launched a single satellite into orbit despite massive spending.
That is clearly a proposal to replace the first stages of all those rockets.
With regards to US "commercial space" companies, SpaceX has proven itself. Blue Origin has not. For what it's worth Blue Origin (2000) was founded before SpaceX (2002). Yet they still haven't launched a single satellite into orbit despite massive spending.
That's a very curious design. Boosting the capsule + service module away from a rocket is a lot harder than just the capsule as with a LES tower, so that would normally necessitate bigger motors. On the other hand this design allows the service module motors to fire concurrently with the abort system motors, that could offset this disadvantage depending on how powerful the service module engines are.
It would give one less separation event though, that's definitely a plus.
Quickie
Colonel
There is also the issue of densities of the fuels which translates to structural issues relating to how large the fuel tanks and rocket stages necessarily ending up being.
The Space Shuttle's huge external fuel tank holding the hydrogen fuel can afford to be relatively thin skin since it doesn't need to provide any kind of structural support to for example the upper stages of the rocket and the payload.
Liquid kerosene has over 10 times the density of liquid hydrogen and about twice the density of liquid methane.
Uncontrolled re-entry is actually a design feature of Long March 5B? After the last one re-entered the atmosphere out-of-control and sprayed houses in Cote d'Ivoire with debris another 20-ton object coming down hard.
What an embarrassment this rocket program is turning out to be.
What an embarrassment this rocket program is turning out to be.
They need to figure out a way to do controlled re-entry for future launches.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
What is that I smell...? Envy? It reminds me of how Indians were trying to logically make the J-20 illegal. Since China wasn't a democracy, it wasn't okayed by the Chinese people so the world should make the J-20 illegal by international law. All that bull just to cover-up envy.
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