China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
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China in the early 2000s wasn't equal to America/Soviet union in the 1960/1970's when it comes to heavy industries and aerospace foundation. our manufacturing output was merely 5 percent of the global total. we were struggling with YF-100 rocket engine.
man its pity that you don't understand China. people's welfare and high GDP growth was the main task of three previous party leaders. it was changed only with Xi Jinping.
its better for you to read about post -1978 time period and party's priorities. Space was never the priority for the party until Xi Jinping came. it was Xi Jinping who changed the direction of High tech manufacturing and aerospace industries with reforms.
and plz don't give us the example of J-XX program. you seriously don't know anything.it was do and die situation for PRC. PLA modernization. this is a different topic. its better not to derail the thread.
What is this stasis you are talking about? China built spaceport launch pads in Hainan island. They built new production facilities for the large diameter Long March 5. They also built the Long March 7. They designed a LOX/Hydrogen upper stage and engine, and the YF-100 staged combustion engine and put it into service. They built their own manned capsule, their own space suits, sent probes to the Moon and Mars, built their own space station and space telescope. They built their own alternative to GPS, Beidou. Etc.
The Chinese space station is the largest and most modern any single nation has ever built.
Take SpaceX out and what has the US done in all this time? Even with regards to SpaceX the Merlin engine is way lower tech than the YF-100. You guys sure are demanding.
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I think I did see that video of the falling booster dropping hypergolics all over a mountain side and exploding.
See video in question, as usual twitter commentary is fairly deranged:
It does point to a need for China to move away from hypergolics, alternatively launch those rockets over the ocean.
Congrats, we built near-replicas of 80s Soviet spacecraft and rockets, and it only took us 30 years. The YF-100 is a clone of the RD-120, a 40 year old engine, for god’s sake. In contrast, the rest of the Chinese MIC are building original products that beat their competitors in price and quality.
Ignoring SpaceX is like ignoring CAST and CASIC. They revolutionized the industry by focusing on profitability and creating new markets for their launchers, not endlessly copying their rivals like CAST/CASIC.
However you slice it, having images of hypergolic boosters exploding in populated areas is a major propaganda L for China. I wonder is the reason this continues because the inland launch sites only have the infrastructure to support hypergolics, and there's not enough coastal X-LOX launch site capacity yet?
The YF-100 is still better than SpaceX's Merlin. Way more technologically advanced. It uses a closed cycle, instead of being open cycle.
Blue Origin has been trying to put their own closed cycle engine, the BE-4, into service and they keep blowing up on the test stand.
There are zero LOX/Kerosene oxygen rich staged combustion engines in service in the US right now. Why do you think they bought RD-180s from Russia for the Atlas V and RD-191s for the Antares?
While the RD-120 might be the progenitor of the YF-100. The YF-100 isn't just a straight clone of it. The chamber pressure and engine diameter aren't the same for example. The YF-100 has a higher chamber pressure so it is more advanced than it.
China massively increased its launch rate and launch mass over the past 40 years. There is also a huge improvement in terms of capabilities. Claiming the Chinese space industry didn't advance over the last 40 years is just a bald faced lie.
In case you don't know the United States government bans the flight of US owned and made satellites on Chinese and Russian rockets. The world launch market isn't open to begin with. Back when Russia could still launch US and European satellites, they made most of the launches. Either with Soyuz or with Proton.
From what I understand the Long March 5 center stage has too large a diameter to move it by rail. It needs to be moved by barge over the water. That is why they built the launch pad for it in Hainan island in the first place. The Long March 7 uses the same diameter of tanks as the older rockets so it should be possible to transport by rail. But in the Long March 7 launch pad in Hainan island the rocket is vertically integrated. I don't think that was the case with the older rockets. The fuel also isn't the same. So launching the Long March 7 inland would probably require building new launch pads.
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It's not like China doesn't know how to build non hypergolic rockets. It just refuses to use them very much or make the transition away for some reason. Yes, it definitely should do that, and it has some learning to do from SpaceX about iteration speed.
The YF-100 has about 61% more (vacuum) thrust than the RD-120 version that China acquired in the 1990s and 47% more thrust than the most powerful version of the RD-120 developed in the early 2000s. I am generally more skeptical about Chinese capabilities than the vast majority of posters here, but to claim that it's a "clone" of the RD-120 is a truly bizarre claim and makes no sense at all.
The Soviets acquired massive amounts of technology from the Nazis and the Rosenbergs, and Clement Attlee sold them the engine for the MiG-15 wholesale, (thats not even to mention the huge amount of Western technology transfer to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s ) so waxing on about how they were heroic cavemen who figured it all out from nothing is completely wrong.
The YF-100 has about 61% more (vacuum) thrust than the RD-120 version that China acquired in the 1990s and 47% more thrust than the most powerful version of the RD-120 developed in the early 2000s. I am generally more skeptical about Chinese capabilities than the vast majority of posters here, but to claim that it's a "clone" of the RD-120 is a truly bizarre claim and makes no sense at all.
The Soviets acquired massive amounts of technology from the Nazis and the Rosenbergs, and Clement Attlee sold them the engine for the MiG-15 wholesale, (thats not even to mention the huge amount of Western technology transfer to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s ) so waxing on about how they were heroic cavemen who figured it all out from nothing is completely wrong.
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It's worse then that. China's use of hypergolic rockets is actively increasing and it's use of cryogenic rockets is decreasing. I'm not kidding. The long march 8 didn't launch a single time this year, the long march 6 launched a single time in 2023 compared to 2 launches in 2022, the long march 5 launched 1 time compared to the 2 launches in 2023 and the long march 7 launched the same number of times as in 2022. 2023 saw less launches of cryogenic rockets by the PRC then in 2022, the launch sector is regressing. Only the private sector has stepped up with their first launches of their cryogenic rockets. I'm not kidding when I say that only the private sector is the only hope left for cyrogenic rockets in China, I wonder if anybody realised that the number of the cryogenic long march rocket launches actually decreased in 2023 compared to 2022. And people wonder why I'm so angry about China not modernising her rocket fleet, it's pretty clear that even in 2023, the reverse is happening.
If you look at the numbers, it paints a bleak picture. Like half the current launchers are hypergolics while a 1/3rd of the launches are this tiny little small lift solid fuel rockets that can barely get a ton into LEO and the remainder are cryogenic rockets. At least the hypergolics give good performance of a few tons to LEO, compared then the dozen solid fuel rocket variants that can only put a few hundred kilos to orbit. If I had to theorise, I would say that China was thinking of replacing their hypergolic fleet with solid fueled rockets, hence why you see the LM11, Kuaizhou rockets, Zhongke-1 and Jielong 3 all popping up in the last few years and launching in large numbers.
That's why launch numbers are useless, China's launch numbers are being propped up by all this small lift solid fuelled rocket launches that can barely lift anything into orbit. A single falcon heavy launch can probably lift more mass then every single solid rocket that China has launched this year.