China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Closer view of the 12B launch.
The landing legs blending in with the colour of the fuselage does have a certain aesthetic to it.
In any case, add another to the growing list medium lifters intended to be capable of VTVL.
No landing attempt this time due to lack of a suitable site, but a successful first launch is nothing to sneeze at.
In any case, add another to the growing list medium lifters intended to be capable of VTVL.
No landing attempt this time due to lack of a suitable site, but a successful first launch is nothing to sneeze at.
There are some (possibly IMO uncredible) rumors about a further planned upgrade to CZ-12B to increase actual reusable payload to 20t by plausibly stretching the first stage(?). Hoping this will actually come soon, given that basically all current and planned (with public specs) Chinese LVs are just embarrassingly heavy and large for the actual payload compared to the F9 which I suppose is better than nothing but honestly it is questionable how a huge rocket with only a reusable payload in the single digit or low double digit tons is going to be economically useful in the long run, especially that the proportionally larger second stage is spent, the logistics of reusing, transportation etc due to large size and the extra fuel required per kg in orbit.
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its 10th Qianfan Constellation satellites..
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I've thought about this a little bit and to be honest I think it probably isn't a near term focus for any of the launch providers (or their customers) for whether a reusable lifter has the same, marginally less, or marginally greater payload to orbit than a Falcon 9 (reusable or expended) in the near term.
The bigger priority is probably just getting a viable medium lift reusable vehicle flying, then landing, the reusing to begin with. Iterated upgraded variants are inevitably going to happen down the line (the industry is dynamic enough that the successful launch providers will be incentivized to improve their product), and in the medium term there are probably going to be heavier reusable launch vehicles with diameters greater than the 3.8m-5m variety that will emerge and be genuine single stick heavy lifters (or even super heavy lifters) themselves.
For the purposes of cultivating a successful reusable high cadence launch industry, as well as launching the super-constellation projects that the PRC has cooking without having too great of a delay, in the immediate future, getting launch and then reusability right are probably of greater priority than squeezing out an extra couple of tons per launch.
And for those people who are of more strategic/military application minded -- demonstration of reusable high cadence launch and civil super-constellation development are probably the most relevant for rapid application of same capabilities for military purposes.
Also, interestingly it seems China still has problems with mass satellite deployment. If you watch the video to the deployment part, you'll see the second stage is tumbling and basically just spinning satellites out which also causes each of the separated satellites to be tumbling. At worst this could directly damage or disable satellites, at best would be annoying due to having to use onboard reaction wheels or CMGs to reorient itself properly which indirectly waste fuel later to desaturate.
No recovery attempt ?
CZ-12B doesn't have a landing padNo recovery attempt ?