China's Space Program Thread II

[by78]

An image of the international space station captured by a Jilin-1 satellite.

 

[by78]

DeepBlue has successfully conducted the first full-system hot test of its Thunder-RS 130-ton LOX/Kerosene engine.

DeepBlue has successfully carried out a 20-second full-system hot test run of its Thunder-RS 130-ton LOX/Kerosene engine.

 

[iewgnem]

Payload should be look at more as well. Since you can launch a few tiny satellites 40times on the most small basic rocket and claim to be ahead as well, meanwhile your comoetitor can launch just 4 launches which dwsrfs all the satellite launches you carried out. So yeah payload matters as well.
However china and the US are not competing in the same market due to US sanctions, China has her own national objective to pursue so they dont really compete directly on the world market. Plus China space industry has its own set of goals which they are working towards different from the US and its private company spaceX

Payload does matter, the payload launched by every LM5 mission is beyond the ability of any active service US launch vehicle after D4H retirement, yes that include New Glen and F9H.

I think what you meant to say was: repetition of low complexity payload to low energy orbits matter.

 

[gelgoog]

View attachment 162663
The above graphic displays the USSR's numbers advantage from late 60's to mid 90's BUT how that didn't provide them with the qualitative strategic edge vis a vis United States.

Soviet satellites had way lower lifetimes. That is one reason why they needed more launches. The Soviets also had constellations like Legenda which the US did not have back then.

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And finally the Soviets actually had a manned space station program. The US only got back into that in the 1990s.

 

[tiancai8888]

I've read rumors of 2 mid-course intercept test last week, so maybe it's possible they're two different launches?

Based on my observation of the social media. IMO one from XSLC, the other from JSLC.

JSLC one :

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[tphuang]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1979138413367263673

SpaceSail finally had its first launch since March. Now, 108 sats in the space

 

[by78]

Two high-resolution images from the launch of the 6th batch of satellites for the Qianfan/Space Sail constellation, which was carried out by a Long March 6A. This was the 601st flight of the Long March series.

 

[Michael90]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1979138413367263673

SpaceSail finally had its first launch since March. Now, 108 sats in the space

Is there a reason for such a long delay between this launch and the last one by Spacesail? I hope they won't keep launching so sparsely, else their constellation wont be viable. Guowang by contrast seems to be on the right momentum/path to achieve their objectives IF THEY CARRY ON THE CURRENT LAUNCH RATE.

 

[ENTED64]

Is there a reason for such a long delay between this launch and the last one by Spacesail? I hope they won't keep launching so sparsely, else their constellation wont be viable. Guowang by contrast seems to be on the right momentum/path to achieve their objectives IF THEY CARRY ON THE CURRENT LAUNCH RATE.

There hasn't been any official statement that I'm aware of but I believe the general understanding is that Spacesail has had technical issues with its satellites and thus launches were put on hold for much of this year to fix those problems.

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It seems like they have got a hand on these issues now so launches are resuming. To be honest if there was going to be technical issues, it's much better that it happened this year and got sorted out than in upcoming years. Launch capacity was always going to be limited this year so even if Spacesail's satellites were available they couldn't launch in much larger volume anyway. By contrast in upcoming years with commercial reusable rockets becoming available a stoppage in launches would have been much more painful so it's better this happened in 2025 than in 2027 or something.

 

[taxiya]

There hasn't been any official statement that I'm aware of but I believe the general understanding is that Spacesail has had technical issues with its satellites and thus launches were put on hold for much of this year to fix those problems.

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It seems like they have got a hand on these issues now so launches are resuming. To be honest if there was going to be technical issues, it's much better that it happened this year and got sorted out than in upcoming years. Launch capacity was always going to be limited this year so even if Spacesail's satellites were available they couldn't launch in much larger volume anyway. By contrast in upcoming years with commercial reusable rockets becoming available a stoppage in launches would have been much more painful so it's better this happened in 2025 than in 2027 or something.

I wonder if the article is trustworthy. It claimed orbital drifting and decaying by linking to this site

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This site lists 14 decaying and 6 drifting out of 90 without providing details of which ones are faulty now.

Then I checked this site which lists all 90 in orbit. I don't have time to check everyone's orbit parameter, but I assume "in orbit" means that they are in intended orbit and not drifting or decaying because that is not in orbit.

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So before any detail is presented, I will put a lot salt in this article. We have seen lots of dubious internet personality acting as professionals posting on a website which has no professional backgroud.