China's Space Program Thread II

[by78]

More information on CAS Space/Zhongke's suborbital space tourism efforts:
– Zhongke plans to carry out a verification flight of a prototype Lihong-1 spacecraft this year. The unmanned spacecraft will carry microgravity experiments.
– From 2026 to 2027, carry out a sub-orbital (100km) test flight, verify parachute recovery and reverse thrusters of Lihong-1 prototype. Carry out a 100km-level launch of a prototype Lihong-2 spacecraft.

Lihong-2 specs:
– Length: 20m
– Diameter: 3.35m
– Takeoff weight: 72 tons
– Engine thrust: 4×240 kN
– Thrust adjustment range: 50-100%
– Ignition times: 3
– Payload (experiments only): 3 tons
– Number of passengers: 7
– Reusability: 20 times

Zhongke/CAS Space will carry out the first flight of Lihong-2 reusable suborbital tourism spacecraft sometime in late October to November. If it goes well, two more flights are planned for next year.

 

[AndrewJ]

Though many will give lots of excuses about this, but I'm more than angry after watching this happens again & again.

Sources say people in the explosion area were informed & evecuated in advance (as usual), but it's still NOT OK to explode and emit great amount of toxic BROWN gas every time! In previous cases, it even exploded around residential area, though not this time!

Can't CASC come up with some better approaches than this before reusable rockets are ready?! Especially replace those toxic fuel ASAP!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1980485939148546233

Source:

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[Michael90]

Chinese Space Financing Goes Mainstream
View attachment 162943

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Wow….local governments are more involved and bullish on Chinas space industry than private investors and venture capitalists it seems. It’s good to see Private Chinese space companies have good support (financial and infrastructural ) from the government.

 

[Michael90]

Any idea when the PRC will be able to start using those reusable space vehicles to launch their satellite internet constellations? Companies like Landspace still have the vibe of garage startups even after ten years. The launch tempo we’ve seen in 2025 for Guowang and Qianfan has been at a snail’s pace and needs to pick up. If you look at SpaceX, they’ve already launched around 2,400 satellites this year alone.

I don’t think we should be comparing Chinese private (or even state) space companies with Spacex. Spacex unconventional sucess has been an exception not the norm. The thing is spaceX has been so spectacularly successful that they make it look easy and make other competitors looks slow and even lazy. lol. However that’s far from reality , what spaceX has achieved is just so spectacular that it makes others look bad. It’s not just China, even in the US spacex has put old dinosaur with more experience like ULA(Boeing /lockheed) and even NASA projects to shame, not even counting other private US space companies like blue origin or rocket lab etc . Spacex makes all them look irrelevant, same with Russia, Europe and Japans space companies . They can’t compete at all with SpaceX. if anything China space industry is the only one who is still in the game and stands a chance to catch up with SpaceX in future if their private startups projects goes well, (which is not guaranteed) and they are able to really find that true sauce solution to be able to mass produce rockets like spacex has been able to do. So all this remains to be seen how they will perform this coming years and if they will be able to scale up instead of launching once or twice a year. That will be what makes the difference I believe.
so far China has done well , it’s just that spacex has been moving faster than everyone to be honest . Keep in mind that without spacex the US space launches and industry will be lacking behind even China today. Spacex is actually carrying US space industry by themselves . I really admire what Musk has done to be honest. The man is something else.

 

[Michael90]

Though many will give lots of excuses about this, but I'm more than angry after watching this happens again & again.

Sources say people in the explosion area were informed & evecuated in advance (as usual), but it's still NOT OK to explode and emit great amount of toxic BROWN gas every time! In previous cases, it even exploded around residential area, though not this time!

Can't CASC come up with some better approaches than this before reusable rockets are ready?! Especially replace those toxic fuel ASAP!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1980485939148546233

View attachment 162987

Source:

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Seriously, this is one area CASC has been a let down. I think in 2025 going to 2026 they should be retiring this old obsolete hypotonic rockets which were used at a time China was still a backward poor country. China has developed and advanced enough to still be using this same outdated rockets which keeps falling u controlled in sometimes inhabited area and most of all with their high toxicity , this is unacceptable in 2025 to be honest . I don’t understand why they haven’t transitioned to less toxic cryogenic rockets which they have already tested and put into operation . It might take some time and delays in launches to make the change but it’s worth it, since this continued use of old hyperbolic rockets is not sustainable or good for the environment/country . They need to be replaced ASAP. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything so far to show it will be the case anytime soon. I guess it’s just easy and more viable to carry on with this than make such drastic changes which I understand requires time, capital, human resources etc.

 

[ScarletMagician]

Jiuquan is an inland site. Unless you switch to 100% reusables, you will never be able to stop rockets falling on landsite locations, hypergolics or not. Sure hypergolics are a problem but that's not the idea here.

Besides, western press won't care if its hypergolic or not, they will just point and laugh and say 'haha, look at these useless [anti-Chinese racial slurs]! They keep dropping rockets like dumb orcs!'

The only solution is shifting all expendable rocket launches to Wenchang - which sure, that's possible, but with the drop in launch cadance considering how many people bitch about how SpaceX's launch count is still higher than the whole of China, you want that?

 

[iewgnem]

Though many will give lots of excuses about this, but I'm more than angry after watching this happens again & again.

Sources say people in the explosion area were informed & evecuated in advance (as usual), but it's still NOT OK to explode and emit great amount of toxic BROWN gas every time! In previous cases, it even exploded around residential area, though not this time!

Can't CASC come up with some better approaches than this before reusable rockets are ready?! Especially replace those toxic fuel ASAP!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1980485939148546233

View attachment 162987

Source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"Better approaches" are being built at Wenchang, Jiuquan and Haiyang right now in large numbers

But let's not pretend it's really a safety problem, huge expenses goes into evacuations and temporary accommodations for each launch to ensure safety, practically it's really a cost problem, and for most people what they really care is the optics.

Let's also not pretend anyone in the west actually cares about safety, not just Chinese but that of their own people.

 

[tphuang]

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Long March 8A carrier rocket's YF-75DB hydrogen-oxygen engine successfully completed its certification test on October 18th.

 

[CVNisCV]

Is it Guowang?

This Long March 5 rocket is not the same configuration as the commonly used one for launching Guowang.

 

[CR400BF5033]

Though many will give lots of excuses about this, but I'm more than angry after watching this happens again & again.

Sources say people in the explosion area were informed & evecuated in advance (as usual), but it's still NOT OK to explode and emit great amount of toxic BROWN gas every time! In previous cases, it even exploded around residential area, though not this time!

Can't CASC come up with some better approaches than this before reusable rockets are ready?! Especially replace those toxic fuel ASAP!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1980485939148546233

View attachment 162987

Source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

No offense intended, but maybe you should think about a problem before "questioning" why China built launch sites in inland far, far away from the sea, where the debris can be safely dropped in? Jiuquan, Taiyuan and Xichang were built in 1950-1980, and which country had put a huge threat to China's missile and space programs from the sea back then? And this specific country have free and unstricted access to the east and west coastlines of the Continent it located in, all its enemies are separated by oceans >5000km wide, and all other countries in the same Continent are its ally or too weak. Do you think China has such a great geopolitical environment?