Move over SpaceX, NASA and Roscosmos, China is about to have its own super powerful rocket
booster to send payloads farther and faster. The Asian economic and space powerhouse,
China is going head-to-head with the likes of SpaceX, ULA, and Boeing by successfully making
a homegrown Super Heavy booster The China Academy of Launch Vehicle
Technology (CALT) recently announced that a first prototype of the YF-90 staged combustion cycle,
220-ton thrust hydrolox engine, for the 2nd stage of the Long March 9 has been completed.
It is the core two-stage engine of China's heavy-duty carrier rocket.
Its performance indicators have said to have reached the international advanced level.
China claims it can now better meet the power needs of China's future
carrier rockets and ambitious space missions. China also announced that the first 9.5m-diameter
fuel tank bottom ring now is off the production line. It's designed for the super heavy Long
March 9 rocket. The R&D is done by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT).
The Long March 9 will be a Saturn 5-class super-heavy-lift rocket comparable in capacity
to Boeing’s Space Launch System, SLS, currently being developed under NASA,
for its Artemis I moon mission. The chief designer at CALT,
Long Lehao, said the Long March 9 would be capable of lifting 140 metric tons to low Earth orbit,
50 tons to Earth-Moon transfer orbit, and 44 tons to Earth-Mars transfer orbit.
The 93-meter-high Long March 9 is expected to have a launch mass of over 4,000 metric tons,
producing close to 6,000 tons of thrust.
The core stage will have a diameter of 10 meters while four boosters will
each have a diameter of up to 5 meters. This would make the boosters comparable
to the Long March 5, China’s largest rocket so far, which debuted in 2016.
The Long March 9 is slated to be ready for a test flight around 2030.
One of the major missions of the Long March 9 would be a single-launch
Mars sample return mission, while the rocket is also being designed to facilitate lunar missions,
including crewed landings. The launcher is based
on existing 5-meter-diameter cores of the Long March 5, China’s current largest launch vehicle.
China claims, the Long March 9 would be able to launch components
for a space-based solar power system, 35,786 kilometers above the Earth.
The project aims to establish a large collecting area receiving solar energy almost constantly,
without the atmospheric or seasonal interruptions. The space-based solar power project would
provide large-scale renewable energy and help tackle energy resource scarcity.
To start with, the project would conduct a small-scale electricity generation test in 2022,
leading to a megawatt-level power generation facility around 2030.
Commercial, gigawatt-level power generation would materialize by 2050. And THAT would require more
than 100 Long March 9 launches and around 10,000 tons of infrastructure, assembled in orbit.
In a major breakthrough, Chinese government recently officially approved
Long March 9 super heavy launcher, which is going to power crewed
lunar exploration, Mars sample return and crewed Mars exploration missions.
The super-heavy-lift rocket is due to make its debut with lunar manned mission in 2030.
State approval of the Long March-9 paves the way for future manned lunar missions, and propel
China's space industry to greater heights. It remains to be seen, though, how fast the
Super Heavy Long March 9 can go from the drawing board to the launch pad.
Given China’s speed of space technology advancement, this shouldn’t take terribly long.
I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for watching.