The launch laid "an important foundation for subsequent launches and reliable recovery."
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China just carried out its second reusable launch attempt in three weeks
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If you show the Chinese something can be done, they do it. Their ability to catch up and sometimes exceed the competition on advanced tech is impressive.
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IIRC, one of the early main worries with SpaceX was super sonic relight, and that problem worked well into their nozzle design. Space is hard. Tons of little problems in undefined territories of knowledge and any little bit of unknown as well as leaking plumbing can make everything fail. It's why I don't worry about designs that just look like SpaceX rockets. It might be a good starting spot but that doesn't even begin to cover all the details that might spoil the mission. To make it all work, they'll have to end up knowing all that stuff.
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Four companies testing reusable rockets within a few months of each other! This suggests that China is taking a similar approach to rockets as it did with EVs.
- The imperial government issues a decree and subsidies to build rockets
- Every province and internal political faction attempts to create and/or sponsor its own rocketry champion company so that it can win brownie points from the emperor.
- Most of the "champions" end up as hilarious failures, but a few of them emerge as ruthless, competent survivors.
- China unleashes the survivors on the rest of the world.
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if an american (North America citizen) can know a thing, any humain being can know the same thing.
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The OP was not criticizing China's policies but rather complementing them.
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Thanks!?
I threw it together pretty quickly, but seems perfectly cromulent to me.
Country, number of launches (to orbit) per million population. Which bit are you struggling with?
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? The post you're replying doesn't use the word 'despicable', 'ridiculous', or mention Trump at all, much less imply he's great.
Did you reply to the wrong person?
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Recoverable rockets have been a thing for just over a decade. So far the only person to replicate that technology is Blue Origin with New Glenn
The next closest rival is Rocket Lab who has recovered Electron rockets but haven't reflown one yet, but is looking to launch and land a Neutron next year.
Europe and Japan are both playing around with hoppers.
Russia's version's don't appear to have left the design board.
I don't know the status of ISRO yet, but I assume re-usability will be a thing for them as well.
I fully expect the China to have more companies and types of rockets with reusable stages than the rest of the world in a couple years. They realize it's the future. Larger American firms don't get that and smaller firms don't quite have enough capital yet.
The next closest rival is Rocket Lab who has recovered Electron rockets but haven't reflown one yet, but is looking to launch and land a Neutron next year.
Europe and Japan are both playing around with hoppers.
Russia's version's don't appear to have left the design board.
I don't know the status of ISRO yet, but I assume re-usability will be a thing for them as well.
I fully expect the China to have more companies and types of rockets with reusable stages than the rest of the world in a couple years. They realize it's the future. Larger American firms don't get that and smaller firms don't quite have enough capital yet.
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Yeah, it's not like it's a terrible model (ignoring the Emperor snark). As long as the goals being chosen are good ones.
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To a point. I'm not going to pretend to understand the math that Einstein etc could understand.
Not to say China doesn't have smart people, clearly they do, but a lot of the relevant knowledge that SpaceX has of how to do what they do isn't necessarily easy to come by or obvious. They'll get there I'm sure, and it's not about which country is doing it, it's just that some things are HARD, rocket science proverbially so.
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Not my nephew, that kid (well he's 35) can't operate a calculator to save his life. He has however managed to rack up more felony convictions than I have traffic tickets.
But I get your point....
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And when they catch up, they'll out manufacture you too since that's literally what they've been doing for decades...
Once they have the first few developed, it's going to rapidly come down in price once they have multiple mega factories set up within a year after that... I can see that the number of Chinese rocket launches will match current/future SpaceX launches (and with a cheaper price too) within 5-7 years.
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Apparent photo of it on return, on fire at both ends.
View: https://x.com/CNSpaceflight/status/2003486793434562937/photo/1
View: https://x.com/CNSpaceflight/status/2003486793434562937/photo/1
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[Me puts on "Akshually" hat]
@Ozy 's reply notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure that's not what OP meant. Methinks @GFKBill was referring to the "anyone" part, not specifically the "American" bit. I read their comment to imply that knowledge can be shared across borders and languages, but not everyone is capable of understanding everything, and they used themselves as an example. Plus, they're in NZ, so I guess they probably don't have an axe to grind in favor of the notion of American Exceptionalism.
TLDR - No, the U. S. of A. does not have a monopoly on smart people.
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Alibaba to LEO coming right up, with service to Luna shortly after.
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Yeah. No point fixing stuff that isn't broken. We're probably looking at the successor to western-style capitalism.
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What are they going to do when they start landing these things? I would imagine trucking them back to the launch site is a much bigger pain than using a barge.
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Considering all the state-sponsored hacking going on, you have wonder how many of those details are unknown to the Chinese.
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Great summary of the field thanks. Wow, that’s one hell of a stable of reusable vehicles on the horizon. The rest of the world will regret it if they ignore the ramifications.
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The way China's going, they'll build a special purpose rail system that delivers the recoverable parts right into a refurbishment facility at the launch site.
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I think a lot of us believe that was already a foregone conclusion.
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What's funny with China copy/pasting Falcon 9's design is that the size of the F9 (about 12 feet diameter, IIRC) was specifically limited because it needed to be able to be transported by road from Hawthorn Ca. At about 12 feet, it hits the limit for an oversized load in the US (I think limited by bridge height, not width). In fact, the landing legs make it a bit too big, so they are shipped separately and then bolted on.
This is why the F9 has a payload fairing that is wider than the rocket - the rocket itself is constrained in width.
If China doesn't have that restriction, then they may be copying the Falcon 9's size without understanding why that specific size was chosen, and it was chosen because of road transportation limitations that probably have no relevance in the deserts where China does their launches.
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It definitely completed lithobraking.
Nonetheless, quite an impressive first flight. Per the photo @GreenEnvy linked, it may have been on fire at both ends on the return, but it was maintaining proper attitude (yay grid fins). They appear to be on a SpaceX type trajectory of build/test/RUD/diagnose/fix/repeat, and if they can afford to run a hardware-rich program (hint: they can) the results will follow.
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I'm not the "rah-rah" America type, but I do wish the EU or other nations would finally give some real competition and not China. China will curb-stomp the rest of the world once they get going, just like they have with manufacturing. Look at their absolute domination with EVs, batteries, solar tech, etc. Once they get the moon, they will pursue the same approach they currently have with territories in the South China Sea and will be aggressively passive-aggressive and will stake out all of the best territories. I'm not saying the US is that much much better at this moment (see Greenland right now), but historically the US has extended a hand to the EU and other nations with space access and technologies. China, not so much.
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Far less about their engineering but very much about manufacturing.
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Of course, the point of reuse is that you don’t need to manufacture huge numbers and can still achieve high cadence. Well, if it’s partial reuse, which I think all these are planned to be, you would still need to crank out second stages, but that’s generally simpler. A question for me is whether there will be enough payloads to support that many reusable launch companies. I am aware of 2 constellations underway - are there other mass launch consumers I am unaware of?
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