Sorry here's the link I copied the wrong one...
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Yeah this is the one thing I really disliked in their press release/post. Their 300-ton claim is the only one that stands. The rest, I counted three others, are not true.
Also some news I found:
A container free materials cabinet pushed a tungsten alloy to above 3100 degrees Celsius in a new world record. In Earth's gravity, when tungsten or niobium metals are heated, they do not form in a very observable pattern. In microgravity, though, they form into a spherical shape (described in the article as an elixir), and using forces generated by an electrostatic field, the cabinet can cradle the metal and hold it suspended in mid-air. This is why they call it containerless. This should allow Chinese astronauts to study the properties that could potentially survive atmospheric re-entry better.
Prior to the meeting, on-site inspections were carried out through the commercial liquid-rocket propulsion test base, the satellite data industrial park, and the Research Institute. Meeting seems to have gone well and suggestions and opinions were offered about the future direction of the spaceport.
The Dongfang Spaceport, a mobile intelligent ship that has been called the world's first "all-sea-area mobile launch-and-recovery" vessel, was the test platform. Weather conditions were poor during this campaign, however they still managed to launch all six rockets, starting at 3:23 AM and ending at 6:40 AM, with the average interval between launches being under 35 minutes, the lowest being just 19 minutes. Throughout the launch window, positioning was kept within 1 meter and the platform attitude was kept within 0.23 degrees, highly precise.
(If anyone wants I can try posting these types of news daily or every other day)
Missed this yesterday, but some more slightly major news.
Obviously we all remember that just ten days ago, the Zhuque-2E launch was a failure, and I know a few in this thread were worried about delays to the launch of the ZQ-3 (as admittedly was I, slightly), but good news, they are still planning the launch for either September or November of this year.
In this documentary, he was asked what the short-term plans were for the ZQ-3, the CEO Zhang Changwu, in which he stated that they still aim for a flight in the 3Q of this year optimistically, or November if more technical challenges are faced. I am more on the pessimistic side for now, so I believe November, but if good progress is achieved between now and then, I will be a believer.
The documentary also shed some light on their manufacturing processes, cost of launch, and progress of the space launch sector and reusability in general.
Edit 1: It seems they also
Edit 2 (literally just seeing this information):
Obviously we all remember that just ten days ago, the Zhuque-2E launch was a failure, and I know a few in this thread were worried about delays to the launch of the ZQ-3 (as admittedly was I, slightly), but good news, they are still planning the launch for either September or November of this year.
In this documentary, he was asked what the short-term plans were for the ZQ-3, the CEO Zhang Changwu, in which he stated that they still aim for a flight in the 3Q of this year optimistically, or November if more technical challenges are faced. I am more on the pessimistic side for now, so I believe November, but if good progress is achieved between now and then, I will be a believer.
The documentary also shed some light on their manufacturing processes, cost of launch, and progress of the space launch sector and reusability in general.
Edit 1: It seems they also
Edit 2 (literally just seeing this information):
This is the exact same playbook China used for EV development, government directed public and private investments into a whole bunch of players and let them duke it out among themselves, aka "养蛊 ". Most of them will end up as losers, but losers don't just die, their assets and human resources just get reconsolidated into the winners
I think Chinese space launch industry will overtake SpaceX the same way Chinese EVs overtook Tesla, once they get their reuseable rocket technology right they will rapidly build up capacity and undercut SpaceX by a lot, considering all the advantages China has, cheap propellent, infrastructure, and an electronics industry that can manufacture way more satellites for much cheaper than starlink.
The thing is the US won't allow anyone to launch US made satellites on Chinese rockets.
But yes if China massively improved not just space launch but satellite manufacturing and business this could change.
SpaceX is dumping oodles of cash on Starship. Remember the Soviets canceled the N1 rocket after 4 launch failures. SpaceX has had what like 8 failed Starship flights? It has to be the most expensive launcher development program ever at this point.
But yes if China massively improved not just space launch but satellite manufacturing and business this could change.
SpaceX is dumping oodles of cash on Starship. Remember the Soviets canceled the N1 rocket after 4 launch failures. SpaceX has had what like 8 failed Starship flights? It has to be the most expensive launcher development program ever at this point.
How far behind is China's satellite manufacturing compared to the US ?
