What's the update on Zhurong? Is it dead or hibernating?
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
by78
General
It's likely dead.
Multiple occations in this thread and/or the HGV thread. Don't be "fooled" by the cover, it has nothing to do with aircrafts.
by78
General
China Manned Space Agency interested parties to submit proposals for scientific payloads for the manned lunar exploration project. The manned lunar landing will take place in 2030, but before that, an unmanned mission will be carried out for verification purposes. The call for payloads –– to be carried by lunar landers ––– is for both the unmanned landing and the manned landing.
Last edited:
by78
General
A slide on China's next generation manned spacecraft. It will be used for China's manned lunar mission. From up to bottom, it consists of launch escape tower, return module, and service module. The mass of the space craft is 26 tons. It's designed to carry three taikonauts to lunar orbit and then dock with the lunar lander (see second image below). Also, a new manned spacecraft for near-earth missions will be developed based on this spacecraft and is expected to carry four to seven taikonauts.
Mr. Yang Liwei, the first Chinese taikonaut sent to space, at a public lecture that China's next generation crewed spacecraft is expected to fly in 2027 or 2028.
Last edited:
by78
General
More presentation slides on the two variants of Long March 10. The variant with boosters is intended for China's manned lunar missions. The variant without boosters is for transporting cargo and taikonauts to the Chinese space station, and it has a reusable first stage and has a LEO capacity of 14 tons.
According to CASC's official Weibo account, the reusable first stage of the booster-less Long March 10 variant has passed a series of key technical verifications.
Man, it did not take that long.
As correctly assessed previously on 10th June 2023 (a month ago), Starship is not at all a viable concept.
It was a trap set up by Elon Musk's SpaceX, though a gross and clumsy one that could only work on the low IQs, but could never fool any serious OSINT analyst! So why would one take the bait?
China's future CZ-9 can only become the 长征九号斯托克型运载火箭 or CZ-9 with aerospike design second stage and regeneratively cooled heat shield, the only known reasonable reusable second stage design to date.
Proof, Blue Origin has just filed patents on 6th July 2023, indicating an aerospike design on a New Glenn second stage:
▲ Blue Origin has just filed patents on 6th July 2023.
Soon Elon Musk will no longer be able to hide the real Starship design and will be forced to announce his own Starship with aerospike design second stage and regeneratively cooled heat shield.
You give Musk too much credit. His company is basically stumbling along until they get a viable Starship design. The only question is can they do it before their money runs out or not.
Falcon 9 had two things going for it. They had one of the best, if not the best, engine development team in the US. It had a low mass aluminium-lithium construction which made it cheaper than its rivals. Then they added reusability to the mix. They iterated on the engine until they had one of the best gas generator designs in cost/performance.
Now they went for the full-flow staged combustion in the Raptor. If they can get it to work, it will be one of the best performing rocket engine designs in history. As for Starship itself, it is kind of irrelevant, eventually they can do a design which works, reusable or not.
SpaceX's idea of what constitutes a launch pad though is kind of ridiculous.
The plug nozzle second stage that Blue Origin is proposing sounds ok on the face of it. But Blue Origin is not exempt from failure. As can be seen from their BE-4 engine which keeps blowing up and delaying the introduction into service of the Vulcan rocket.
Falcon 9 had two things going for it. They had one of the best, if not the best, engine development team in the US. It had a low mass aluminium-lithium construction which made it cheaper than its rivals. Then they added reusability to the mix. They iterated on the engine until they had one of the best gas generator designs in cost/performance.
Now they went for the full-flow staged combustion in the Raptor. If they can get it to work, it will be one of the best performing rocket engine designs in history. As for Starship itself, it is kind of irrelevant, eventually they can do a design which works, reusable or not.
SpaceX's idea of what constitutes a launch pad though is kind of ridiculous.
The plug nozzle second stage that Blue Origin is proposing sounds ok on the face of it. But Blue Origin is not exempt from failure. As can be seen from their BE-4 engine which keeps blowing up and delaying the introduction into service of the Vulcan rocket.
Last edited:
by78
General
Nayuta Space (千亿航天), a private launch provider I haven't heard before, has partnered with an engine company called Aerospace Propulsion (商宇航推进) to develop a reusable LOX/Methan rocket called "Space Chaser I".
The reusable rocket has a length of 67.3m, a diameter of 3.8m, and a mass of 450t. The first stage is powered by nine Canglong-1 (沧龙一号) engines, and the second stage is powered by one Canglong-1V. Capacity to LEO is 10t.
The reusable rocket has a length of 67.3m, a diameter of 3.8m, and a mass of 450t. The first stage is powered by nine Canglong-1 (沧龙一号) engines, and the second stage is powered by one Canglong-1V. Capacity to LEO is 10t.