Another Falcon 9 lookalike joins China’s growing roster of rockets

There are sound engineering reasons to use the same approach SpaceX uses with the Falcon 9

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[Rachelhikes]

So they have reuse in the works, but in terms of recovery, they are where Starship is - succeeding at targeting the landing , but have yet to complete a successful landing AFAICT.

They are further than Starship. The Long March 10 booster did not explode, and has been recovered for study. The plan is to land on a barge, which is easier and lower risk than trying to return to the launch site. The Falcon 9 had plenty of bad barge landings. Not that big a deal because the risk of collateral damage is so low.

(And of course making it easier is that it is just a booster, and boosters take a lot less heat on the way down than Starship. Re-use for them is mainly a matter of engine life expectancy, and like Space X with the Falcon 9, the Chinese will learn as they go. They’ve already got a used booster to study, even after the first launch. A long way to go until they have a manned moon rocket, but so far, so good.)

(I gather that some readers think I was comparing the 10 booster to the Super Heavy Booster + ship, not just the ship. That was not my intent. The Super Heavy Booster seems farther along than the Long March 10 booster, in a comparison of the two.)

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

They are further than Starship. The Long March 10 booster did not explode, and has been recovered for study. The plan is to land on a barge, which is easier and lower risk than trying to return to the launch site. The Falcon 9 had plenty of bad barge landings. Not that big a deal because the risk of collateral damage is so low.

(And of course making it easier is that it is just a booster, and boosters take a lot less heat on the way down than Starship. Re-use for them is mainly a matter of engine life expectancy, and like Space X with the Falcon 9, the Chinese will learn as they go. They’ve already got a used booster to study, even after the first launch. A long way to go until they have a manned moon rocket, but so far, so good.)

Did you miss the multiple recoveries (and even a relaunch) of a Super Heavy booster v2? Granted, this hasn't been replicated with v3 yet, but arguably SpaceX is much farther along than you seem to realize...

 

[llanitedave]

Much as I hate Musk the person, SpaceX the company has done the field of rocketry a great service by demonstrating both true reusability and for demonstrating that methane-LOX rockets work just fine, no liquid hydrogen needed.

In many ways, I think it was NASA's insistence on LH (which admittedly made sense back in the 1960s) that kept them from being successful with the STS as LH has much smaller tolerances for everything from seals to temperature, which increased complexity which then decreased reliability and reuse rate. Imagine what might have happened if NASA had gone with kerosene or methane for the STS...

One early idea was to use an SIC booster derived from the Saturn V to get the stack off the launch pad. That used Kerosene fueled F1 engines, upgraded to F1A by the time the Shuttle would have launched. It would have eliminated the solid boosters, increased payload capacity, and arguably been safer and more economical.

 

[llanitedave]

Stolen ideas/tech usually does...

You realize the industrialization of the United States was based on taking plans of European technologies without permission and reusing them, right?

China is going about this intelligently. They're studying the best technology available, adopting what works, and saving time and money to get results. They're obviously not copying, the Chinese rocket engines apparently don't have the same ISP as the Merlin D3s, but they're incorporating what they can and basing their designs on it.

Not a fan of the Chinese government, but then, I'm not a fan of SpaceX management either. My main criticism of China's Space Program is their lack of transparency and their careless insertion of uncontrolled debris into orbital spaces, as well as disregard for their own civilian populations downrange. Other than that, if they want to iterate on SpaceX's success and take advantage of it for themselves, I say go for it.

 

[Rachelhikes]

Did you miss the multiple recoveries (and even a relaunch) of a Super Heavy booster v2? Granted, this hasn't been replicated with v3 yet, but arguably SpaceX is much farther along than you seem to realize...

I was referring just to the ship, which I think was true of the post I was replying to. (If not, then I misunderstood.) I agree that the Super Heavy Booster is ahead of the Long March 10 booster, especiallly since this is the 10A booster, and not the full 10 booster. (The 10A is the version for taking payloads to their Tiangong space station, while the 10 is the version for Lunar payloads.)

The 10A flight was actually two tests in one: it also was a (successful) test of the abort system for their new (mostly) reusable Mengzau capsule, which will take over missions to the space station as well as their missions to the Moon. So, progress there too.