China's Space Program News Thread

[by78]

Some screen grabs.

Then and now:

Sleep bunks with portholes:

 

[iantsai]

北京时间2021年12月10日8时11分，我国在酒泉卫星发射中心用长征四号乙遥四十七运载火箭，成功将实践六号05组卫星发射升空，这是长征系列运载火箭的第400次飞行。

CZ-4B/Y47 orbited Shijian-6/05 satellite in Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center, 08:11 UTC+8, Dec 10, 2021.

It's the 400th launch mission of CZ series rockets.

 

[eprash]

see my other posts about ICBMs and commercial boosters using the same propellants.

I see where the misunderstanding now for the record I never claimed the propellants use different supply chains it's obviously provided by the same companies, using same propellant is done to cut cost it's not considered optimal these days

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

From what I can see, it currently costs SpaceX about $1000 to send 1 kg to Low Earth Orbit using the Falcon 9 Full Thrust

That is far below anything anyone else can manage and is the current benchmark to beat

And looking at the Starship design with a reusable 2nd stage, they should be able to get this down to $100 per kg to Low Earth Orbit.
That is 10x less

---

Looking at Galactic Energy, Landspace and i-Space - their current engines should be comparable to the Merlin engines on the Falcon 9

But both SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing rockets which are far larger than the Falcon 9, along with much larger engines, like the Starship which aims for 10x lower costs

I reckon the Chinese rocket startups will end up developing reusable designs comparable to the Falcon 9 in the next 2 years.
But this will only be an intermediate step before they have to go with:

1. A new Methane-Oxygen1st Stage Engine design which is much larger
2. A larger 1st Stage Rocket design
3. Reusable 2nd stage

Starship doesn't work and is unlikely to work. It is a fatally flawed design being pushed for by Musk's ego.

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[KampfAlwin]

Starship doesn't work and is unlikely to work. It is a fatally flawed design being pushed for by Musk's ego.

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I like how people hype Starship like its a done deal. It hasn't even entered service and yet, fanboys act like it is. They also think it's the only way forward for space travel and projects like CNSA's spaceplane is obsolete.

 

[anzha]

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[AndrewS]

Starship doesn't work and is unlikely to work. It is a fatally flawed design being pushed for by Musk's ego.

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Did you actually read the blog?

Yes, the Starship is suboptimal for Mars missions, but it technically can work.
The crucial thing is that Elon Musk already knows this.

Mars colonisation is just the marketing gimmick in the future.
The first versions of Starship will be focused on purely lowering LEO launch costs to $100/kg. That will be a game changer.
Afterwards, they'll likely develop different Starship versions or a new vehicle for Earth-Mars and/or Earth-Moon transits.

 

[AndrewS]

I like how people hype Starship like its a done deal. It hasn't even entered service and yet, fanboys act like it is. They also think it's the only way forward for space travel and projects like CNSA's spaceplane is obsolete.

Well, from a technical perspective, I don't see any reason why Starship can't get to $100/kg for LEO launch.
At those costs, demand for space launches will explode.

A CNSA spaceplane theoretically could get to $100/kg as well, but would have a much smaller payload.

I also don't see any reason why one of the Chinese startups couldn't develop a Starship/SuperHeavy type combination which is even further optimised for low-cost launch to orbit and to the Moon. But I reckon they would be 3-5 years behind.

One other thing is that the Starship/SuperHeavy Raptor engines seem somewhat underpowered compared to the contemporary Blue Origin BE4.
And that the SuperHeavy uses 29 Raptor Engines, which is a lot.

That's an argument that SpaceX should have developed a larger rocket engine for the SuperHeavy first stage

 

[Broccoli]

Does anyone have info about that new Long March rocket in Angara 1.2, F9, Zenit category whats supposed have it's first flight by 2023? I saw few pics on nasa spaceflight forums but there wasnt much info.

I assume it's supposedly replacing Long March 3/4 series.

 

[escobar]

CZ-4B/Y47 orbited Shijian-6/05 satellite in Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center, 08:11 UTC+8, Dec 10, 2021.

It's the 400th launch mission of CZ series rockets.
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The first group of second-generation Leidian (internal code) SIGINT satellites, 11 years after SJ-6 group 4 launch...