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China Plans Superheavy Rocket, Ups Reliability
hackingbear writes: China is conducting preliminary research on a super-heavy launch vehicle that will be used in its manned missions to the moon. Liang Xiaohong, deputy head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, disclosed that the Long March-9 is planned to have a maximum payload of 130 tons and its first launch will take place around 2028, comparable to U.S.'s SLS Block II in terms of capability and likely beating its schedule. The China National Space Administration has started preliminary research for the Mars exploration program and is persuading the government to include the project into the country's space agenda, according to Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the administration. Separately, China's Long March series of rockets completed its 200th flight on Dec 7. It took 37 years for the Long March series to complete their first 100 flights, but only 7 years for the second 100 flights. In addition, the programclaims (link in Chinese) a success rate of 98%, on par with E.U.'s and beating U.S.'s 97% and Russia's 93% success rates.
It helps to have a multi-trillion dollar economy and a billion workers. Let's cook!
Enjoy that moon dust.
The headline initially confused me as to how United Parcel Service or uninterrupted power supplies could be connected to China's space program. I thought: is this some sort of T. Rowe Price commercial about a complex interconnected global economy?
Although China is no more my country, I was born there. As an ethnic Chinese I understand the Chinese mentality --- that in this "space race" thing China's stance is to take one firm step at a time, no matter what others are doing
And it is evidenced in China's approach on its space program so far. China always takes its own sweet time in launching whatever they have launched. They seemed to be in no hurry at all and they seemed to be oblivious to whatever others are doing
The Japanese have launched space mission to collect comet dust
The Europeans have landed a probe on a comet
The Americans have been to many corners of the Solar System, with two of its space crafts actually outside of the perimeter already
Even the Indians have sent their space craft, and as we speak, speeding closer and closer towards planet Mars
China? Well... They tried once to hitch a hike on a Russian mission to Mars but that thing failed miserably. After that, no more mission until China can send one up by their own
So far, China prefers to stick to their space station mission and their moon mission. Nothing else matter
That's the Chinese way of doing things - gonna learn to crawl before learning to walk before learning to run
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And we all know how reliable reliable is.
Success rates? When you don't have to pioneer anything, your success rate is going to be higher. That's the benefit of coming in last. The downside, of course, is that you come in last.
(eom)
Reliability was a problem in the early US and Soviet years. All the new German ideas needed to be understood and worked with under local conditions.
Operation Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... gave the US a lot of German experts with no questions asked.
Over the years the US had to understand what was been constructed for them.
India had to build its own rockets and now has the local technology that is well understood and can be funded.
China faced the same issues with its advanced technology. Buy in or wait for local skills.
China now has the industrial capability and is ready to move on with its own rocket development at its own pace.
Different nations have understood to not out spend their space budgets.
A generation of the UK Skynet satellite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... would be the other way to do space science.
Buy hardware from the US and try and get local experts to work on a new UK satellite. When that fails just buy into an existing US satellite product.
Lots of nations have to learned to understand space science in different ways. Some have much lower budgets too.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Last I'd heard, the Long March 9 was so early in development that they hadn't yet decided on two options: either a LOX+RP1 first stage with liquid boosters, or a LOX+LH2 first stage with more powerful solid boosters.
Current Long March rockets, by the way, use N2O4+UDMH exclusively (save for the very first few, which used RFNA+UDMH). Very military design.
If you're not into rocket science, those are different enough that you can't just swap out the fuels. You'd be changing the engines, the fuel pumps, the tankage, the whole frame, pretty much everything. Normally this is one of the first things you settle. Car analogy: this is like deciding how many wheels to have when building a car. You can't really just throw another pair on there.
Then again, China's got the budget, they could design and even test both, then decide which is better and declare that CZ-9.
Yeah, better go with FedEx.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
That counts all launches. The US and Russia have been launching for far, far longer (decades!) than Europe and China, and in the early days rocket technology was just being developed and there were many failures in the process of learning.
If you start late, you get to take advantage of more modern engineering, techniques, computer modeling, etc.
I currently live in Hong Kong, and I do several business trips to Chinese cities. I am not surprised that China is catching up in the space race, based on the general impresson of ambitious, intelligent and thorough workers. Indeed, they have not caught up everywhere (both as in the geography where there is a divide - but closing, and as in product categories), but it is obvious that China will only get more dominant.
A lesson for western countries (I am European btw) may be to increase school quality. Schools in HK and China can be VERY high in quality (perhaps pushing the kids too far), andI learned twice already from chinese expats in the west that their kids found the supposedly excellent local western schools too simple. Eduation is investment in the future, and I notice that China does that well.
Meanwhile, when I go back to Europe every half a year, I am saddened by the general lack of ambition. People tend to wait for th e government to do something for them. Over here, people are much more ambitious and enterprising.
I came from China, landed on the US soil as a refugee
When I left China I was in my mid teen. The last school I attended in China (regular school) was something equivalent of a junior-high of the United States, and at the time I left, China's society was in a totally chaotic state, and the schools I attended were also upside down in terms of "teaching/learning"
But still, when I landed on the US soil, at first I was enrolled in an American high school (I knew almost nothing in English, except the A-Z alphabet and simple "Yes/No/Thank you") but when it came to math, it was, to me, totally ridiculous
In the American high school the math they were doing I did it in my primary school, in my 3rd and 4th year, as a matter of fact
After I got my English straightened out, I got into a community college, and even then, in the freshman and sophomore years (the first two years of my university life I studied in community college) the math they taught there was still lower than what I had (in "junior high") back in China, and I ain't talking about simple business math course either, as I was aiming for a science stream, so the math courses I was taking were things like Calculus, Advanced Calculus, and so forth
And yes, that was back in the 1970's, and even back then, the school standard of the United States was already lower than that of China
Today, the gap between the school standard in Asia, specifically those in Korea, China, Singapore, Japan and that of the West, specifically the U. S. of A. has grown wider, much wider
If the West do not improve, in a generation or two (give or take 50 years) Asia will lead the world in Science and Math
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
China's launch record is quite good, but when they fail, huge numbers of people die. China doesn't use launch abort systems like the US does. When a US rocket fails, it is destroyed immediately to minimize damage. When a Chinese rocket fails, people die. One launch in the 90s killed over 500 people when a Long March III basically bombed a town and they couldn't stop it due to the lack of any abort system. Atypical to be sure, but they've had other launches that have killed people, and these are just the ones we know about.
Basically what I'm saying is that China really needs to put launch abort systems in their rockets.
I guess we have some time to catch up, eh? We went from first orbit to the moon in less than a decade, so come on folks, let's make it snappy!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
China announced this now, as a means of helping their economy. Right now, multiple bubbles have been bursting in your country. Interestingly, their stock market is still climbing at a fast rate, even though major announcements keep coming about failures and how your economy is tanking.
This is simply more manipulation of information and people.
Hmmm. How come China does not release the data associated with this?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's something I've always wondered, they're already busy with the rocket, so why would it still need almost 14 years to get the damn thing off the ground...
Yanks. It's "yanks" if you want to use the term "chink". Don't be an ignorant racist, you honky kike jap nigger gook towelhead injun wop.
RASCOM-QAF1? Africa is trapped by the need to have its telecommunications provided by other nations.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If you control one of these babies, does that make you a Marcher Lord?
They're talking about building a rocket whose first launch is in 14 years. Yeah, I know it takes a long time to engineer something complex like a HL rocket, but I think in this case they're hedging their bets. A valid strategy might be to just go slow work up a design and then watch what SpaceX and NASA does and modify their design based on the lessons learned from those HL systems.
It's not a bad way to go, but it also means in the short term no Taikonauts will be leaving LEO...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Also why I was pissed about the decision to kill Khadafi. Libya financed that sattelite and was thus was committed to slashing the cost of communications in Africa (a few orders of magnitude more expensive than in the First World). But as the country was too independant and there was an opportunity with "Arab spring" to get rid of it, the US decided the "revolution" would happen and now the country is ruined, and Islamic State.
So Africa is trapped by yet another disaster decided by idiots and criminals in suits.
is it?
Re "that sattelite and was thus was committed to slashing the cost of communications in Africa"
All the fees and peering costs would have been lost from big brands that just expect that cash flow.
So the good projects that give Africa independence get stopped.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
While an interesting comment, it is sort of counter to your argument. A space program isn't something that normal enterprising people can do, it is something that only their governments can do. While you might argue that due to educational culture, the Chinese might be more inclined to produce more engineers than say financial advisers, however I don't think that there is a lack of those people in the other space fairing nations.
Just born in China does not mean you understand China ,,, please don't represent China ... just like the American's love to represent mankind ... not so sure about mankind happy to be represented only by the US.