They seem to be trying to get a little more innovative, but they don’t seem to be in a big hurry about it:
Reusable lift-body launchers will be developed in three stages — rocket-engine partial reusable vehicle, rocket-engine full reusable vehicle and combined cycle-engine reusable vehicle, said Lu.
The Long March carrier rockets still have room for improvement, Lu said, adding that the CALT is developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle with a payload of 140 tonnes to low Earth orbit and 50 tonnes to lunar transfer orbit.
The heavy-lift carrier rocket is currently called the Long March-9, and it should be sent into space by 2030, he said.
[Via Parabolic Arc]
I just realized while reading this article that China seems to be focusing on competing with Richard Shelby’s Space Program!
Look at the schedule time for their heavy lift vehicle. It is scheduled for the same time frame, 2030, as the finalized versions of SLS! They have allotted a small amount of attention to cheaper and partially recoverable launch vehicles, such as Vulcan is. Both Vulcan and SLS are to be built by company facilities in Huntsville, under fealty to the Alabama congressional delegation. All in all, however, their main concern seems to be to keep the money flowing!
Either that, or the control by the Military Affairs Committee, the ultimate power in China, is so focused on countering US military space assets, that this is viewed as an internal propaganda machine that both “inspires” and uplifts its student’s engineering studies, and distracts people from ASAT and other military-related work. The LBJians in Congress might envy that degree of control in the next 5 years.
It might not be ‘inspiring’ or even original but it demonstrates they intend to be a player. Keep in mind this is all about military power and a long view is an asset.
Our advantage is not our govt. but our free people, but has anybody noticed how our people are becoming more and more like nanny state lemmings?
The fact that about half our citizens could vote for Hillary should be giving everybody serious nightmares (which started for me with Obama’s second term.)
Their launchers might not be as competitive as SpaceX’s but they are making steady progress in what they launch. Since their primary goal is supporting the government/military, being economically competitive might not be a big issue for them.
The timeline similarities Tom Billings notes are interesting. It appears they think they are in a competition with us, which is probably why they are looking at re-usability. It might not be critical to their overall goals but they have to keep up with the Joneses. Do we view ourselves in competition with them?
Their plans for international partnerships and launch facilities support their One Road strategy, naval base expansion, and African development. Do we view ourselves as competitors in cultural and economic influence?
As Ken points out, our strength is a free people. Given the chance, the will do well in the space arena and China wont be able to keep pace. Terrestrially, we already have significant relationships and trade routes but maybe we have become too complacent
Regular Chinese view their space program as a purely military endeavor. In that regard the Long March 5 family with staged combustion engines and more modern vehicle design techniques fit their needs perfectly.
They basically did a technological leapfrog from something like the Titan rocket to an EELV similar to the Atlas V or Angara. If you don’t think that is significant you don’t have your head screwed on straight. They also made an all new space launch site much closer to the equator at Hainan island. Regarding manned systems over the next two decades they will start building a multi-module space station. So they have basically caught up with most of what someone like ULA can do today. In fact they can do better than ULA because they don’t need to buy engines from the Russians since they handled the technology transfer properly unlike RD Amross.
Regarding solids I’ve heard rumours the Chinese have the facilities to produce CL-20 (20% more energetic than HMX) in large quantities so they might as well have capability to design more compact solid rockets than we give them credit for. This is particularly significant when considering their SLBM or road mobile ICBM capabilities.
Yes they supposedly have a Long March-9 rocket program to compete with the pork launcher. Which is not inspiring I guess. But of all the main state players they are probably the ones who made a public reaction regarding emulating SpaceX the fastest I think. Their program traditionally has been wedded a lot to space plane like designs though. Especially considering their program started with Tsien who was fascinated with that kind of thing. So the question is how much funding will be going into that.
The Chinese economy seems to be overheating and while I think their One Road Strategy will make them grow in the future (they are making massive investments in Pakistan to bypass the Malacca Straight for example) they might stagnate for the next decade and a half or more.