When Chinese space officials unveiled the design of the country’s first super-heavy rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was completely expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped to its sides.
Since then, China has been reviewing the design of this rocket, dubbed Long March 9, in response to SpaceX’s development of reusable rockets. For two yearsChina had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage.
Now, according to information released at a major air show in Zhuhai, the design has been transformed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
This looks familiar
According to its latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket will have a fully reusable first stage powered by 30 YF-215 engines, which are full-flow staged combustion engines fueled by methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of approximately 200 tons. . For comparison, Starship’s first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines, also fueled by methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of about 280 tons.
The new specs also include a fully reusable configuration of the rocket, with an upper stage that looks eerily similar to Starship’s second stage, complete with similarly placed fins. According to a presentation at the air show, China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, almost a decade from now.
In related news, last week, a quasi-private Chinese space startup, Cosmoleap, announced plans develop a fully reusable “Leap” rocket in the coming years. An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement indicated that the company is looking to emulate the toothpick tower capture methodology that SpaceX successfully employed during Starship’s fifth flight test last month.
Let’s be real for a minute. These are not the first times Chinese rocket programs have emulated SpaceX, such as when Space Pioneer planned to develop a clone of the falcon 9. Both the state rocket agency and the company’s private industries are copying SpaceX best practices as they try to catch up. At this point, China’s launch industry is basically in SpaceX’s waiting room to see what ideas it should capitalize on next.
The real race begins to unfold
Of course, it is not new that the Chinese industry seeks to copy (and in some cases steal) ideas from its Western competitors. To its credit, the Chinese space industry recognizes that the future of spaceflight is entirely reusable, and even its state-owned enterprises are recalibrating toward that outcome.
Instead, American policymakers seem determined to force NASA to continue building the ultra-expensive and expendable Space Launch System rocket for decades. This eats up a NASA budget that could otherwise be spent on the kind of technological advances that could keep America’s civilian space program ahead of China.
NASA and Chinese space agencies are currently engaged in a second space race, in which both countries are forming international coalitions to explore the south polar region of the moon and eventually establish settlements there. Because the territory near the south pole (especially near craters, where water ice is likely to be present) is relatively limited, winning this race really matters for long-term space ambitions.
China intends to use a more conventional rocket for its initial lunar missions, the Long March 10 vehicle. These initial forays will last only a few days. The country relies on the much more powerful and reusable Long March 9 to support more robust lunar operations.
Therefore, if the ultimate goal is to develop lunar settlements, the real winner is not the country or space agency that puts astronauts on the surface first. It is the first country to develop a fully reusable super-heavy rocket and fund a program that takes advantage of this revolutionary capability. Currently, the United States is ahead in this race, as Starship is flying.
But the race is by no means won yet, and the latest design of the Long March 9 indicates that China knows where the finish line is.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technique.
