China's Space Program News Thread

[FairAndUnbiased]

No. But if Elon Musk is lying, it is an SEC violation of some sort.

No it isn't. SpaceX isn't a public company so he can say whatever he wants, legally.

 

[Blitzo]

There's always an opportunity cost.

What if you used the money for R&D of powered reusable first stages and put it into R&D of super cheap expendables with essentially throwaway cost structures that don't need to be hardened?

Or into parachute recoverable engines so you cut the cost of tank reinforcement, recovery and inspection, saving only the highest value added part and having equal throw weight as expendables?

there's many opportunities here that in my view are better than powered reusables.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So who's to say that powered reusables are the way to go?

I'm not denying that there's an opportunity cost.

Powered reusable rockets might not be the way to go.
And if you asked me 10 years ago whether VTVL reusable first stages should be heavily invested into for development, my answer would have been very different to what it is now.

However given the large number successful demonstrations that SpaceX have achieved so far, and the lack of any demonstrations of alternative reusable methods in the past and into the horizon, means that as of late 2021, there should be a massive strategic impetus to investigate and develop powered reusable first stages to verify if it is actually viable or not.


I am all for constructive skepticism. However to the time of the present, there is no excuse to at least significantly develop and invest into reusable first stage technologies for at least a heavy lift class rocket, if not a super heavy lift class rocket.

The only reasons for which development of it is unnecessary, is if:
1. They lack the technology, industry or finances to do so, and/or
2. They lack the ambition/future requirements for high frequency heavy lift launches into earth orbit

Those two reasons are both valid ones, but it also means that they would potentially be conceding a nuclear weapon level strategic advantage to adversaries.

 

[Blitzo]

More specific talk about Chinese efforts for reusable rockets...

At least it appears that CASC are seriously looking into reusable first stages, with the reusable YF-102R engine proposed to be ready for 2026, with one depiction of it being a nine cluster configuration that would basically be the same as Falcon 9, and the engine itself in a thrust class basically the same as the SpaceX Merlin.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1442420510810247169

If it ends up being ready for 2026, well, that is better late than never, however YF-102R and a new nine cluster configuration would mean a new rocket, and for the life of me I do not know why they wouldn't simply choose to adapt the CZ-5DY and its YF-100K for reusabililty instead given it is already committed to for the lunar mission, instead of pursuing a whole new family of both rockets and engines.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I'm not denying that there's an opportunity cost.

Powered reusable rockets might not be the way to go.
And if you asked me 10 years ago whether VTVL reusable first stages should be heavily invested into for development, my answer would have been very different to what it is now.

However given the large number successful demonstrations that SpaceX have achieved so far, and the lack of any demonstrations of alternative reusable methods in the past and into the horizon, means that as of late 2021, there should be a massive strategic impetus to investigate and develop powered reusable first stages to verify if it is actually viable or not.

I am all for constructive skepticism. However to the time of the present, there is no excuse to at least significantly develop and invest into reusable first stage technologies for at least a heavy lift class rocket, if not a super heavy lift class rocket.

The only reasons for which development of it is unnecessary, is if:
1. They lack the technology, industry or finances to do so, and/or
2. They lack the ambition/future requirements for high frequency heavy lift launches into earth orbit

Unpowered recoverable engines were already demonstrated 30 years ago with the Space Shuttle SRBs.

Super cheap expendables have also been demonstrated and deployed by CZ-2F.

Your claim of reusable super heavy lift has not been demonstrated. So far it is just a claim. Until it flies at rated lift that's all it is.

 

[SanWenYu]

The biggest advantage of reusable first stage is to save cost, right? Could it be that China is not as sensitive to the first stage cost as the US?

1. China might not have plan to compete against SpaceX in the same segments soon. In the coming years it will probably not have a lot of spare launching capacities for international/commericial payload anyway. At the same time, China might be considering its current first stage models affordable for the planned missions in near term.

2. China might have figured out some way to make non-reusable first stages cheaper to somewhat mitigate the cost problem.

3. The major missions in queue currently, including lunar landing, mars exploring, space station, etc. might have been stretching the funding and/or human resources thin, and because of the combination of above 2, thus delaying the reusable first stage project further unfortunately.

All my wild guess.

 

[Blitzo]

Unpowered recoverable engines were already demonstrated 30 years ago with the Space Shuttle SRBs.

Super cheap expendables have also been demonstrated and deployed by CZ-2F.

Your claim of reusable super heavy lift has not been demonstrated. So far it is just a claim. Until it flies at rated lift that's all it is.

The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have demonstrated the technologies for reusable medium and heavy lift rockets already.

If -- or more likely, when, a reusable super heavy lift has flown at rated lift, if one has not invested massively to seek and match and catch up with reusable heavy and super heavy lift rockets, then you may end up over a decade or even two decades behind in terms of maturity and more importantly in terms of years lost for launch.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have demonstrated the technologies for reusable medium and heavy lift rockets already.

If -- or more likely, when, a reusable super heavy lift has flown at rated lift, if one has not invested massively to seek and match and catch up with reusable heavy and super heavy lift rockets, then you may end up over a decade or even two decades behind in terms of maturity and more importantly in terms of years lost for launch.

We'll see. In the meantime we don't know SpaceX actual financials. So if they lose money on every launch, merely break even on every launch or even make money but aren't as good as expendables, it will be known to be a technological dead end.

I know you said that SpaceX actual financials don't matter but they actually do. They're actually all that matters when comparing reusables vs expendables because it's fundamentally an economic problem.

 

[Blitzo]

We'll see. In the meantime we don't know SpaceX actual financials. So if they lose money on every launch, merely break even on every launch or even make money but aren't as good as expendables, it will be known to be a technological dead end.

I know you said that SpaceX actual financials don't matter but they actually do. They're actually all that matters when comparing reusables vs expendables because it's fundamentally an economic problem.

My argument is that SpaceX's actual financials should not be an inhibiting factor for significantly investigating and developing the current most consistently and repeatedly demonstrated, reusable first stage technology.

I am saying that "we'll see" is not good enough, because that implies one will not be investigating and developing the technology and waiting to see if someone else can develop and demonstrate it first.
With the inevitable conclusion that if someone else arrives there and discovers it's successful, before you've seriously began to develop it for yourself, then you lose out on potentially years or decades of elapsed launch time.

 

[Blitzo]

Who are they? Chinese companies?

I would say that for VTVL number of engines is only one of the considerations that must be combined with the available throttle range of the engine. Without a good throttle range, one has to rely on more relative smaller engines to give the required lowest thrust at landing. This means that a 5 engines configuration with 1 engine in the middle can be a good design if the engine has a even lower minimum working thrust (a broader throttle range).

So I would say that 7 is the optimal number only for YF-100 based rockets in the class of CZ-5DY booster. For anything else, it is a different story.

Falcon 9 can be a good example. It is often launched with lower payload than it could in recovery mode. It would therefor be ideal to make Falcon 9 smaller. But that would mean less than 9 engines (7 perhaps), that will increase the demand on deeper throttling of Merlin engine which was not good at the beginning of its VTVL history. So 9 became the optimal number.

It is a very complicated compromise of target market sector (payload), engine capability and control method.

I've just noted that the CZ-8R rocket intended for first stage reusability (aimed to fly next year in 2022, but we will see), is intended to be powered by 2x YF-100K in its core, and two boosters each with one YF-100K acting as ballast.
That is to say, the YF-100K will be the engine that will be enabling CZ-8R to attain VTVL reusability.

If that is the case, then I hold a slight degree of suspicion/hope that the CZ-5DY which uses the same engine, could relatively easily apply technologies (perhaps soon to be demonstrated/proven on CZ-8R) for itself, and develop a reusable variant relatively easily -- perhaps a CZ-5DY-R... and that the only reason they have yet to announce it, is for typical Chinese low profile/caution, but that once key VTVL technologies are verified, they would be confident enough to pursue it publicly.

 

[Blitzo]

The biggest advantage of reusable first stage is to save cost, right? Could it be that China is not as sensitive to the first stage cost as the US?

1. China might not have plan to compete against SpaceX in the same segments soon. In the coming years it will probably not have a lot of spare launching capacities for international/commericial payload anyway. At the same time, China might be considering its current first stage models affordable for the planned missions in near term.

2. China might have figured out some way to make non-reusable first stages cheaper to somewhat mitigate the cost problem.

3. The major missions in queue currently, including lunar landing, mars exploring, space station, etc. might have been stretching the funding and/or human resources thin, and because of the combination of above 2, thus delaying the reusable first stage project further unfortunately.

All my wild guess.

Given that we know that China is pursuing reusable technologies, but at an earlier stage -- see the CZ-8R, and the YF-102R engine that I posted above -- I think it is far more likely that China has simply been caught unawares as to the potential of reusable first stages and might currently be considering the strategic direction in which it wants to go, and how ambitious it wants to be.

A historical combination of less money, and less cumulative industry expertise and technology, I think is the best explanation for this.


That is why I see the CZ-5DY and the CZ-9(21) to be potentially so significant -- because they both have configurations that could be very amenable to first stage reuse, allowing them to reduce costs of development but more importantly to reduce the time of development.

But I believe they now have the money, and they have the technology (or will soon have it) to pursue such systems, it only becomes one of ambition.

Long Lehao has talked about the idea of a 10,000 ton space based solar power station in GEO, by 2050, that would require over 100 CZ-9 launches.
That is the exact kind of big idea project that should be pursued and encouraged, and is an encouraging sign that they recognize the importance of high paced and regular super heavy launches.