Aren't LM-6/6A/6C/12 SAST projects while LM-8/10/10A are CALT projects? Are resources easily transferred between them?
Continued development of expendable rockets being a waste of SAST development resources assumes that the development bottleneck for a reusable rocket by SAST is within SAST. Might it not be that the bottleneck is in AALPT (YF-209?) There is not much point in SAST rushing to design a reusable rocket if they already know that the engine and the engine production line won't be available in time. You don't save any money by having engineers twiddle their thumbs due to lack of work. Nor is it so easy to lay them off and hope to rehire them all in a few years.
Wasn't the LM-9 design change made possible thanks to the creation of LM-10, which assured schedule for some of the important jobs that would originally have relied on LM-9, such as the manned lunar landing?
A while ago, I wrote four posts on why I think expendable rockets can still make sense, two of which focused on CASC in particular. I will just link them rather than repeat every single thing I wrote.
China's Space Program Thread II
A write up on the Chinese space agency's outer system exploration plans: https://www.planetary.org/articles/chinas-plans-for-outer-solar-system-exploration
www.sinodefenceforum.com
China's Space Program Thread II
The CZ-10 is supremely important. It will enable replacing the older generation of rockets like the Long March 7 and 5 with a much cheaper to manufacture rocket. Which will become even cheaper once they make it reusable. It also does this with minimal expense to develop the requisite production...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Two major points I made are that (a) other Chinese companies are working on reusable rockets also, some being quite far along, and (b) schedule and schedule risk can matter a great deal.
LM-6 first launched in 2015, and the project was started long before that, long before similar payload rockets like KZ-11, SD-3, Kinetica-1, TL-2, reduced-capability ZQ-2, etc, so I don't think it can be faulted for creating redundancy. Core-only LM-8 and LM-6A first launched in 2022, a while before Gravity-1 did, and long before full-capability ZQ-2, Pallas-1, Nebula-1, etc, will.
Even after a new rocket becomes operational, there can still remain uncertainty about the reliability, and also about the cadence, especially if the manufacturer is inexperienced and if the rocket depends on new parts whose production lines are still in the process of being ramped up. Cadence is even more uncertain for a reusable rocket, because its cadence ramp-up curve doesn't just depend on production and the launch site, but also on how long it takes to succeed with first stage recovery, how long it takes to improve first stage recovery success rate, how long the refurbishment process takes, and how long it takes to improve first stage turnaround time.
Schedule could have been assured by simply keeping the LM-2D and LM-4B/C around longer instead of introducing the LM-6 and LM-6C, but if you want to shut down the hypergolics supply chain, you can't have stragglers that still depend on it. Maybe LM-6C is a bit redundant, but if a project is already almost completed, you might as well bring it across the finish line even if it brings little benefit. We know that most work on LM-6C was already done years ago, because LM-6C is to LM-6A what Vulcan VC0 is to Vulcan VC4. And a pad for it had already been built.
Isn't the LM-8G modification a quick fix to make LM-8 more cost-effective for GW/G60 launches? Especially the enlarged fairing. Isn't LM-12 largely a SAST contribution to the same intended purpose - the most cost-effective launch system that can be predicted with a high degree of certainty to be operational in time for GW/G60 payloads, and that can be predicted with a high degree of certainty to have a cadence that is in step with GW/G60 production, so that there is little risk that for a long period large numbers of payloads remain grounded, large numbers of ground terminals go unused, and important downstream applications remain idle, losing massive amounts of money.
There is also the issue of ITU deadlines. Under ITU resolution 35, since GW was applied for in 2021, China must deploy 1,300 satellites (10%) by 2029, 6,500 (50%) by 2032, and 13,000 (100%) by 2034. G60 faces the same clock, starting from 2023. This is in addition to everything else China wants to launch in this timeframe, including critical military payloads. There is no room for years-long delays in launch capacity. Sure, there may be teething issues with LM-8G and LM-12, but the schedule risk from that is low compared to the entirely new reusable rockets that are being developed. Canning every launcher project that doesn't make use of the latest and greatest technology might be a penny wise pound foolish decision.
I think there was a lot of initial skepticism about whether reuse would be economical because of the Shuttle experience. So I think it is less than 8 years since Falcon 9 proved itself in the eyes of many observers, probably more like 5-6 years.
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