It was meant for the LH/LO+SRB variant of CZ-9 in the early study. Even though that variant of CZ-9 is probably never developed, engine works will continue to fruition just like YF-130 and YF-90 as the saying "发展航天，动力先行"
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
It looks to have made incredible progress already if it's indeed true they've managed 500t of thrust on 150t of solid fuel.
If I'm reading the graphic right that CZ-9 plan originally called for "4x 5-segment SRBs with approx. 1,000t thrust each", or 200t/f from each individual segment. That's basically 2 CZ-9 SRBs (2,000t/f) doing the job of 1 SSSRB (1,800t/f) on the SLS.
In the absence of info relating to how much fuel mass each of those CZ-9 SRBs was supposed to have, if we assume that each segment had the same mass as that test rig i.e. 150t, then the new rig has already more than doubled the output of that proposed CZ-9 SRB, going from 200t thrust to 500t.
While by no means a precise calculation, just for spitballing's sake, if they were to scale it up to a 5-segment external booster it could quite possibly mean a 750t heavy SRB with 2,500t of thrust... Pretty huge.
Even a 4-segment SRB that's capable of 2,000t thrust that can run on 600t of solid fuel would already be more efficient than the SLS SSSRB which requires 730t of solid fuel to produce 1,800t of thrust.
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You are thinking in the right direction, however due to my limited knowledge I will not go into details. But one thing is clear to me that the 500t engine is not only better than the spec in the old CZ-9 design but also better than SSSRB. The reason is simple, it is apparently powered by newer generation propellent, likely N-15 or N-15B, its American counterpart is NEPE-75 used in Trident 5D.
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I found a good comparison for that 500 ton thrust motor - Ariane 6's P120 motor which is also monolithic and carbon fibre casing:
P120:
Height 11.7m
Diameter 3.4m
Empty mass 11t
Gross mass 154.6t
Propellant mass 143.6t
Maximum thrust 4.65MN (474t)
Specific impulse 278.5s
Burn time 132.8s
Propellant Aluminium-HTPB 1912
For the CASC motor we know:
Diameter 3.5m
Maximum thrust 500t
Propellant mass 150t
So fairly comparable from the data we have, just a hair bigger. And given Ariane 6 is using P120 certainly this CASC motor certainly already has practical application.
If you see anyone try to argue that "most powerful monolithic SRB" is a meaningless achievement and segmented motor is all the rage well:
Tell them to take it up with ESA.
P120:
Height 11.7m
Diameter 3.4m
Empty mass 11t
Gross mass 154.6t
Propellant mass 143.6t
Maximum thrust 4.65MN (474t)
Specific impulse 278.5s
Burn time 132.8s
Propellant Aluminium-HTPB 1912
For the CASC motor we know:
Diameter 3.5m
Maximum thrust 500t
Propellant mass 150t
So fairly comparable from the data we have, just a hair bigger. And given Ariane 6 is using P120 certainly this CASC motor certainly already has practical application.
If you see anyone try to argue that "most powerful monolithic SRB" is a meaningless achievement and segmented motor is all the rage well:
Tell them to take it up with ESA.
The N15 isn't that new of a propellant. It's the same AP/HTPB-derived solid fuel that's used on DF-31 and thus CZ-11. It's newer than the NEPE, sure; and the CASC facility out of Jianghe that produces the propellant could've refined it further for better combustion kinetics, but I doubt fuel alone accounts for the marked increase in performance.
If that's the case then simply scaling up CZ-11's P35 motor from its 35t fuel mass/120t thrust config would've produced even greater thrust than this 150t model without even accounting for the weight savings from its carbon fibre hull (which is irrelevant anyway), and it certainly wouldn't have taken them until now (or rather last year to be specific) to manage to produce a 500t thrust SRM.
From an article dated 2007, it seems to me that CASC regards NEPE as one generation above HTPB and N-15 is on the same generation of NEPE. A then future ICBM would use HTPB for 1st stage while N-15 for 2nd stage, an underdeveloped new propellent for 3rd stage due to the higher cost and higher performance. So just as NEPE is chemically different from HTPB, I suppose so is N-15.
《二十一世纪航天科学技术发展与前景高峰论坛暨中国宇航学会第二届学术年会论文集》
中国宇航出版社 , 2007.11
(中国宇航学会第二届学术年会论于2006年11月在北京召开)
HTPB, NEPE, BAMO, PBAN and the likes are different chemical binding processes to the primary ammonium perchlorate (AP) solid fuel mixture. They have scantly anything to do with generational differences.
The N15 that CZ-11 uses is derived from DF-31's which is HTPB-based, which incidentally has a slightly higher specific impulse over the SSSRB, which is PBAN-based, which is newer and supposed to have higher performance than HTPB.
Then there's NEPE, which also goes by PEG/NG (Polythylene Glycol Nitroglycerine), which is even newer, but I don't know of any rockets that use that specific mix other than Trident II.
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The students of Thang Long Middle School had an online interaction with the Shenzhou 14 astronaut crew on the spot, and the astronauts gave detailed answers to the questions raised by the Vietnamese middle school
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