China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
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This is probably the ILO-C, a small, wide-field optical telescope developed by the Hawaii-based International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) in collaboration with HKU. It will be used to take pictures of the galactic plane and center from the Moon's surface.
Will be interesting to see who will get the resusble rocket first sucessful launch . My bet is still on Landspace eventhough they have had more failures overall than the others, second i will bet onngalacfic energy pallas 2, then CASC at number 3.Updated for the end of Q3:
Well going by current plans if there aren't delays or failures it definitely seems like the most likely candidate is CASC with Long March 12A. The others that are launching in the coming months aren't attempting reusability immediately I think. The first few launches of Zhuque-3 and Tianlong-3 are expendable and reusability will only come later. Ditto Pallas I think. So unless the Long March 12A launch goes wrong than it should be the first.
I thought landpsace was a reusable test launch. So long march 12A is the only one bold enough to attempt a reusable launch during her first launch on the get go. Interesting, seems they are more bold and confident than the others then.
I guess it will be ysars before the others attempt a reusable launch then.
Landspace does intend for Zhuque-3 to be reusable eventually but not from the very first launch. The first few launches are not going to be reusable. Further I'm not sure it's accurate to say that Long March 12A is more bold than the others, there have already been 2 launches of Long March 12 (no A) which is the expendable version. So it's more like CASC is just further along. They're basically doing the same thing as Landspace where they first launch a few in expendable and then they try for reusable, it's just they're ahead.
As for the others, yes most likely Zhuque-3, Tianlong-3, and Pallas will need until at least well into 2026 before they start doing reusable launches. I don't think it will be years, most likely by the end of 2026 there will be more reusable launches, worst case scenario by the end of 2027. So it's not quite that bad.
Calling LM-12 an expendable version of 12A is a stretch. They are very different rockets. Different engines, different engine configuration, different fuel types, different tanks.
OTOH, the expendable versions (if any) of the ZQ-3 and TL-3 will be essentially the same rocket as their reusable counterparts, just that they won't attempt reuse on initial launches.
So the current launches of LM12 doesn't constitute a launch of 12A in an expendable mode any more than ZQ-2 for ZQ-3 and TL-2 for TL-3.
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