When China’s space authorities unveiled the country’s first super-heavy-lift rocket design nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. This rocket was completely expendable, with three stages and a solid-state motor mounted on the side.
Since then, China has been reworking the rocket’s design, dubbed Long March 9, in response to SpaceX’s development of a reusable rocket. As of two years ago, China had reworked the design to include a reusable first stage.
Now, the design has been transformed again, based on information presented at a major air show held in Zhuhai. And the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost identical to a clone of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
This looks familiar
Based on the latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket has a fully reusable first stage powered by 30 YF-215 engines. The YF-215 engine is a full-flow staged combustion engine fueled by methane and liquid oxygen, each producing approximately 200 tons of thrust. For comparison, Starship’s first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines, also powered by methane and liquid oxygen, each producing about 280 tons of thrust.
The new specifications also include a fully reusable configuration for the rocket, with the upper stage eerily similar to Starship’s second stage, with flaps in similar locations. China plans to fly the aircraft for the first time in 2033, almost a decade from now, according to a presentation at the air show.
In related news, last week Chinese quasi-private space startup Cosmo Leap announced plans to develop a fully reusable “Leap” rocket within the next few years. An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement showed the company trying to emulate the tower-catching technique that SpaceX successfully employed during Starship’s fifth flight test last month. Ta.
Let’s be real for a moment. This isn’t the first time China’s rocket program has emulated SpaceX, such as when Space Pioneer planned to develop a Falcon 9 clone. Both the state-run rocket agency and the company’s private industry aim to emulate and catch up to SpaceX’s best practices. At the moment, China’s launch industry is essentially sitting in SpaceX’s waiting room, figuring out what ideas to adopt next.
the real race begins
Of course, it’s nothing new for Chinese industry to copy and in some cases steal ideas from Western competitors. To its credit, China’s space industry recognizes that the future of spaceflight is fully reusable, and even state-owned enterprises are recalibrating towards such an outcome. I am.
In contrast, U.S. policymakers appear determined to force NASA to continue building ultra-expensive, disposable Space Launch System rockets for decades. This will eat up NASA funding that could be redirected to technological advances that could keep the U.S. civilian space program ahead of China.
NASA and China’s space agency are currently engaged in the second space race, with both countries building an international coalition to explore and eventually settle the moon’s south polar region. Winning this race is critical for long-term space ambitions, as land near the South Pole (especially near craters where water ice is likely to be present) is relatively limited.
China plans to use a more conventional rocket, the Long March 10 rocket, for initial moon missions. These first forays last only a few days. The country is counting on a more powerful and reusable Long March 9 to support more powerful lunar operations.
So if the ultimate goal is to develop a lunar habitat, the real winner will not be the country or space agency that sends astronauts to the moon first. It is the first country to develop a fully reusable super-heavy-lift rocket and to fund a program to leverage this innovative capability. The United States currently has the lead in this race, given that Starship is flying.
But the race is far from won, and the latest design of the Long March 9 shows that China knows where the finish line is.
This story was originally Ars Technica.
(Tag translation) ars technica
