China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
by78
General
LandSpace gave a presentation at industry event where it gave a first peek at the Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket. Expendable version has a payload capacity (to LEO?) of ≥20 tons; reusable version has a payload capacity of ≥16.5 tons (when landing at pre-designated landing zones/on recovery ship) or ≥11 tons (when landing back at launch site).
A peek at LandSpace facility being built at Jiuquan launch center:
According to LandSpace, in the next five years launch capacity by private Chinese launch providers will reach 100 launches per year (1000 tons per year), with average launch price of 20,000 RMB per kilogram.
An official publicity video on the reusable (20 times) LOX/Methan Zhuque-3 from LandSpace. Zhuque-3 is expected to make its .
LandSpace is also aiming to develop a super-heavy reusable launch vehicle (two stages, 10 meters in diameter) by 2030. Suitable engines are being actively developed, and LandSpace hopes to have a reusable 200-to-300-ton engine ready by 2028.
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Very impressive rocket, I noticed that the vacum specific impulse is 35000m/s for an open circle engine, compared to FFSC Raptor's 35600m/s.
I also understand why its LEO payload is stated at 450km instead of usual 200km. It is aiming at the LEO communication constellation satellite launches.
363s is 356000m/s (isp defined as exhaust velocity). Figure taken from wiki
Unfortunately, the video does not include such information.
With Zhuque-2 successfully placing satellites into orbit, is it fair to say Landscape is ahead of South Korea in terms of launch vehicles? In the coming years it's going to be fun to watch other commercial Chinese companies overtaking minor league national space programs.
Can we have a discussion on what falling cost to orbit and such an increase in launches means for China? I'm going to assume that costs in China will fall somewhat similar to SpaceX's falcon 9, around $1000-2000 per kg to LEO, more then half the price of a traditional rocket within a few years. This rockets will be large, near heavy lift to super heavy lift rockets with large fairing that will allow for extra large payloads to be delivered.
From what I have gathered, launches in China have been bottlenecked for years, despite the large number of long march launches, since long march rockets are usually reserved for military payloads and don't tend to ride share commercial satellites.So this will allow lots of commercial payloads to fly. If 2 or more of this companies achieve Spacex level of launch capability, then the issue might be finding enough satellites to launch, a massive difference to the situation today.
This will also affect satellite development. If you don't have to care about shaving off every gram of weight, you can build much cheaper satellites that don't have to use aerospace grade lightweight materials and instead just use off the shelf heavier parts for cheaper cost. More mass and larger payload size also means more capable satellites, from having more mass to shield them from radiation-meaning that more modern electronics can be used, to more propellant being available, to just being more capable at their jobs. The larger you make something, the more capable if tends to be. Maybe we will start to see some really massive 20-50 tons satellites the size of space stations start to get launched in the next decade.
The most obvious use is surveillance/spy/recon satellites. Tens of thousands of satellites covering every useful wavelength and every useful orbit that can provide 24/7 coverage the entire globe at once. And since they number so much, it's impossible to shoot all of them down. And of course the larger the satellite the better it is at imaging. Imagine a optical spy satellite with a mirror diameter of 5 meters. That solves the targeting issue if you want to shoot down a carrier group.
Next up is communication satellites. Again, pretty obvious. China is already launching a massive internet satellites network. In fact it can't be done in LEO without megaconstellations. And of course it has pretty obvious military use. In fact if satellite manufacturing and payload costs fall low enough, I could see China launching an entirely separate LEO datalink megaconstellation solely for use by the military. More and heavier BeiDou satellites too.
More earth observation satellite are useful, but I can't see them benefiting from megaconstellations in nearly the same way as the above 2 examples, since they usually don't require constant 24/7 coverage of the earth. But they will probably benefit greatly if you're allowed to greatly increase their size and mass.
Random commerical payloads would see a large boost. There's so many things that we still don't know about space and falling launch costs could allow for any random company or university to launch experiments into orbit for a few tens of thousands of dollars, a tiny amount compared to today. Maybe we can even get commerical space stations like what America is doing.
Astronomy and other space science missions also get a nice boost. Larger and heavier satellites/telescopes are always better. And if you're aiming for deep space missions, a more powerful rocket means a lot less travel time.
Any other crazy ideas you guys have? Point to point space based orbital transportation system. More space planes being launched on a reusable 1st stage. Space based solar power. Reusable 1st stage ICBMs. Reusable rockets being used as the booster stages for ballistic missiles/cruise missiles/hypersonic glide vehicles. Mass deployment of FOBS. Orbital weapon systems like brilliant pebbles.
From what I have gathered, launches in China have been bottlenecked for years, despite the large number of long march launches, since long march rockets are usually reserved for military payloads and don't tend to ride share commercial satellites.So this will allow lots of commercial payloads to fly. If 2 or more of this companies achieve Spacex level of launch capability, then the issue might be finding enough satellites to launch, a massive difference to the situation today.
This will also affect satellite development. If you don't have to care about shaving off every gram of weight, you can build much cheaper satellites that don't have to use aerospace grade lightweight materials and instead just use off the shelf heavier parts for cheaper cost. More mass and larger payload size also means more capable satellites, from having more mass to shield them from radiation-meaning that more modern electronics can be used, to more propellant being available, to just being more capable at their jobs. The larger you make something, the more capable if tends to be. Maybe we will start to see some really massive 20-50 tons satellites the size of space stations start to get launched in the next decade.
The most obvious use is surveillance/spy/recon satellites. Tens of thousands of satellites covering every useful wavelength and every useful orbit that can provide 24/7 coverage the entire globe at once. And since they number so much, it's impossible to shoot all of them down. And of course the larger the satellite the better it is at imaging. Imagine a optical spy satellite with a mirror diameter of 5 meters. That solves the targeting issue if you want to shoot down a carrier group.
Next up is communication satellites. Again, pretty obvious. China is already launching a massive internet satellites network. In fact it can't be done in LEO without megaconstellations. And of course it has pretty obvious military use. In fact if satellite manufacturing and payload costs fall low enough, I could see China launching an entirely separate LEO datalink megaconstellation solely for use by the military. More and heavier BeiDou satellites too.
More earth observation satellite are useful, but I can't see them benefiting from megaconstellations in nearly the same way as the above 2 examples, since they usually don't require constant 24/7 coverage of the earth. But they will probably benefit greatly if you're allowed to greatly increase their size and mass.
Random commerical payloads would see a large boost. There's so many things that we still don't know about space and falling launch costs could allow for any random company or university to launch experiments into orbit for a few tens of thousands of dollars, a tiny amount compared to today. Maybe we can even get commerical space stations like what America is doing.
Astronomy and other space science missions also get a nice boost. Larger and heavier satellites/telescopes are always better. And if you're aiming for deep space missions, a more powerful rocket means a lot less travel time.
Any other crazy ideas you guys have? Point to point space based orbital transportation system. More space planes being launched on a reusable 1st stage. Space based solar power. Reusable 1st stage ICBMs. Reusable rockets being used as the booster stages for ballistic missiles/cruise missiles/hypersonic glide vehicles. Mass deployment of FOBS. Orbital weapon systems like brilliant pebbles.
