Dongfang Hour
@DongFangHour
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I talk about the 🇨🇳 space sector on 📺 and 🎙 🎧.
Paris, France
Joined September 2020
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Here’s my latest infographic on Chinese commercial rockets and their engines. This should give a good idea of the new launch vehicles we can expect from China in 2023-2025.
A quick thread 🧵
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Chinese
#launch
company CAS Space has reshuffled its future medium and heavy lift Lijian/PR-2 and -3 rocket plans. The new Lijian-3 design looks vaguely familiar… 😅
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Here's an infographic I made on China's crewed lunar plans, covering the main phases of the mission 👇
This should give a good idea of what their Apollo-like approach will consist of.
(Trajectories are illustrative, in the absence of more detailed information).
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#Landspace
is going to attempt the launch of the ZQ-2 rocket (aka Zhuque-2). This is China’s 1st liquid-fueled commercial rocket, one of the first methalox-fueled rockets globally, and this could be a turning point for Chinese launch.
Let's recap the situation in a thread 🧵
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I’m reaching out to
#Landspace
to prepare for a video on their future Falcon 9-class Zhuque 3 stainless steel rocket 🚀
Any suggestions on the questions to ask?
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Chinese launcher startup Jiuzhou Yunjian (JZYJ) completes a full engine hot fire test of its 80-ton liquid methalox Longyun engine, with a pretty epic video of the test posted below.
(1/3)
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Lots of rumors in China at the moment on the financial difficulties of
#Landspace
.
I'm not sure any of these are verified, but in any case it's indeed been 3 yrs since the lastest round of funding.
The Zhuque-2 Y2 launch next week may be critical to the survival of the company...
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Did you like our article comparing ILRS and Artemis? (linked below)
Then you'll love our new infographic of the two programs. Exciting times to be covering 🌕 exploration!
🇨🇳🇺🇸🚀🛰️
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Starting a quick thread to track the different engines on the
#Tianhe
-1 module of the CSS (feel free to comment if smth. is missing!)
Let's first start with the fact that Tianhe-1 is equipped with 30 thrusters, of which 26 are chemical thrusters, and 4 are Hall Effect thrusters.
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Wow, this is one massive round of funding. Shanghai Spacecom (aka Shanghai Yuanxin), the operator of the future
#G60
broadband megaconstellation, raised 6.7 billion (!) CNY on February 1 2024.
That's nearly 1 billion USD, unprecedented in the Chinese funding landscape 💰
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Our video on
#Landspace
's launch of the ZQ-2 was just released!
CN commercial launch is really getting interesting with the rise of liquid-fueled rockets. In 2023, there was the Tianlong-2 & ZQ-2, and we may see the Tianlong-3, SQX-2 & Nebula-1 next year.
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Working on a Chinese lunar
#lander
3D model (based on the pictures from the exhibition in Beijing's National Museum).
It's still work in progress but almost done! It will be used in a video on China's future crewed lunar program 🧑🚀🌗
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We recently published an explainer video on the
#Intelsat
708 launch disaster in 1996 and the long-term ramifications for the 🇨🇳 space program.
Below is a short extract including the accident👇
The full video is available here:
Enjoy!
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2⃣️3⃣️ days into the new year, Space Transportation announces the first test flight of its Tianxing series of suborbital spaceplanes of 2022. This represents the 10th test overall of the Tianxing 🇨🇳✈️
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Interesting: the Chinese startup
#NayutaSpace
signed a deal with Chinese commercial engine manufacturer Aerospace Propulsion to purchase methalox engines.
This order was announced shortly after
#NayutaSpace
revealed it had raised tens of millions of CNY in a round of funding.
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Ever wonder how the Chinese Space Station handles space
#debris
?
According to Hou Yongchun (CAST) in a recent CCTV interview, China's strategy can be summarized in 4 points:
🛡️防: Protect
🚀躲: Avoid
🔧堵: Repair
🏃♂️逃: Escape
Let's detail each step.
Thread (1/7) 👇
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Huge congrats to
#Landspace
, this is a major milestone for the Chinese commercial launch industry. They are transitioning from small solid-fueled rockets to medium-lift rockets.
🎉 Huge congratulations to LANDSPACE!
History made on July 12.
Zhuque-2 is now the world's first methane rocket to reach Earth's orbit.
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I just published my interview with Chinese launch company
@cas_space
at the 2023 Paris Air Show!
Lots of interesting insights on the launch company’s strategy in the coming 2–3 years.
The interview👇
And a quick summary below🧵
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Glad we can finally drop the term “NGCS” or “China’s equivalent of Orion” 🙂
So Mengzhou, it is.
The days of writing "new-generation crew spacecraft" are over. It's now "Dream boat" (Mengzhou/梦舟/dream vessel). The Moon lander is now 揽月, or Lanyue, "embracing the Moon."
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An
#iSpace
press release goes over Hyperbola-1 failure and what worked/failed:
✅4 rocket stages separated successfully
✅the attitude & orbital control engines worked correctly
✅GN&C OK
✅Payload separation OK
❌The main issue was the payload fairing not separating properly
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Huge news as China creates a "SatNet" (中国星网) company directly under SASAC (i.e. at the same level as the big 3 telcos, CASC, and CASIC), with the purpose of operating a LEO constellation.
A lot to break down here (1/4)
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One presentation at CCAF2022 discussed why China's space pop culture was weak compared to its achievements in space.
There was an interesting comparison betw. NASA's successful PR campaigns & products (left) & out-of-sync domestic ones (incl. this air-conditioned shirt by CASIC)
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Fancy rocket models at the Galactic Energy booth 😍 I may have a chance to get an interview with them this week. Any questions you would like me to ask?
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Just published a 10-min video summarizing China's quest for a broadband constellation over the past 7 years. From the early Hongyan/Hongyun projects to the latest Guowang/Xingwang megaconstellation 👇
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A thought on China's future commercial launch center in Hainan, operational in June 2024:
Will this actually work for Chinese commercial launch companies? 🤔
Some quick math: there are 2 launchpads for liquid-fueled launch. But pad n°1 is essentially reserved for the Long March
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Slow mo footage of the Long March 2F exhaust plume at lift-off, for your viewing pleasure (and mine) 😍
📸: CMSA - Shenzhou 15 mission
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Just released our latest story covering China's
#G60
megaconstellation.
This was super interesting to cover🧐
- There's the geopolitical twist with KLEO and Rivada
- As well as the obvious question: does China need a second megaconstellation? 👇
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The speaker was Chen Yuzhong, a deputy director within China's Satellite&Network media group. His assessment was rather blunt, including this quote:
"China is a major space power, yet our space culture & soft power is weak. And worst of all, many of us actually think it's good."
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Our video on Chinese reusable rockets is out!
This 17-min episode provides a historical perspective and covers the progress of Chinese reusable projects (incl. commercial & state-owned enterprises).
For some extra thoughts, a thread below 👇
Enjoy!
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Random fact of the day: here's what the HQ of China's megaconstellation operator China
#SatNet
is going to look like (artistic render on the left, snapshot of the construction site in July 2023)
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Just came across this store in a mall in Shanghai. This is the clothing brand that sponsored the
#Orienspace
Gravity-1 launch earlier in January 2024.
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So it seems like Chinese commercial launch company
#Landspace
will establish a "reusable rocket technology R&D center" in Wenchang!
A pretty big update coming from a company that has so far put less emphasis on reusability compared to its competitors (iSpace, DBA, etc)...
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China's
#CALT
is considering a heavier version of the Long March 8, named Long March 8G.
It would have a larger 2nd stage (⌀ 3.35m instead of 3m), use 2x upgraded YF-75H hydrolox engines and a larger ⌀ 5.2m fairing. Capacity will increase from 5t SSO to 6.4t.
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Can't say I'm not envious of the seemingly very high quality models of Shenzhou/Tianhe/LM2F shown during CCTV livestreams...
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Going through some old footage of the Long March 2E from 30 years ago (March 1992). The payload is the Australian Optus B1, manufactured by Hughes. Nice shiny Australian, US and Chinese flags on the fairing 🇦🇺🇨🇳🇺🇸
How times have changed.
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A helpful tool when following the Chinese space sector: AI sharpening 😁
On the left, the lunar rover for China's upcoming crewed lunar mission in ~2030. And on the right, the sharpened higher res result.
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Big announcement out of
#China
of details for an expanded
#broadband
#constellation
codenamed GW.
🇨🇳🛰️🚀
Highlights:
-2 phases; GW-A59 and GW-2
-7 sub-constellations within the 2 phases
-12,922
#satellites
in total
@Megaconstellati
@larrypress
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It's interesting to see Chinese launch startup Space Epoch try something different 🤔
While most of its domestic launch competitors are designing reusable rockets performing VTVL, Space Epoch wants to let the first stage splash down into the ocean, and tow it back with a ship.
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Our latest video on China's future crewed lunar mission is LIVE! 👨🚀🌕
I've included everything we know at the moment: the mission profile, launch vehicles, spacecraft involved, timelines, etc. Enjoy!!
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Here's a sneak peek of the
#NGCS
model I'm working on... Will be used in a future video covering China's crewed lunar mission 😊
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Interesting!🤔
Here's the number of
#Guowang
satellites (=Chinese Starlink) launched per year between 2024 and 2035, according to Chinese firm Founder Securities.
That means ~5000 satellites in orbit by 2030, 2500 sats launched/year in 2031-2035, and the full deployment by 2035.
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It's interesting how Wenchang will increasingly resemble Florida's space coast.
A commercial launch site is currently under construction & will host 4 launchpads. Each pad will have a capacity of 16 launches/year. That's a total of 64 potential launches per year🤯
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Is it possible to track a launch with just a telephoto lens + a motorized gimbal?
@DJIGlobal
has this nice ActiveTrack feature on its gimbals where you just tap the target you want to track.
Below is my setup (DJI RS3, 350mm lens), let's see if it works on airplanes first😂✈️
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There’s more and more talk in China of another broadband satcom constellation called “G60 Starlink” (G60星链). This project is separate from the
#Guowang
megaconstellation and would see 1296 satellites launch to LEO in a Phase 1, and “12 000+ satellites in the longer term".
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My interview with Claire Wu of Galactic Energy is now online on
#YouTube
! It's also available as a post on the Dongfang Hour website.
A brief recap of the insights in a thread 🧵👇
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We’re finally going to be able to drop the name NGCS 😅
(NGCS = Next Generation Crewed Spacecraft)
👀 CMSA has just dropped a cool animation of the future crewed lunar landing system: the crewed spacecraft and the lander/ascender, and calls for public participation in naming them.
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Quick teaser for my next video coming out this weekend, providing a full update on China's quest for rocket
#reusability
in 2023.
Stay tuned! 🤩
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We just released our latest video on Chinese sea launch! With the recent success of the Gravity-1 rocket, the timing was good to delve a bit into the history of CN sea launch & the reasons behind China's push for this unusual technical solution ⛴️
Enjoy!
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Anyone have thoughts on the feasibility of a commercial GEO
#relay
satellite business? It's what the Chinese startup
#HualuSpace
is trying to do.
Among non-Chinese companies planning to do this, we have noted Audacy (in MEO, but went bankrupt), and
#AnalyticalSpace
(in LEO).
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CN commercial companies are developing liquid-fueled rockets for this purpose. Many are close to launch: Landspace (ZQ-2) on 14/12, Galactic Energy (Pallas-1), Space Pioneer (Tianlong-2), RocketPi (Darwin-2) in 2023, and iSpace (SQX-2), Deep Blue Aerospace (Nebula-1) in 2024 (?).
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New video released! Covering the Long March 9 & the latest info on the Starship-like version unveiled last week👇
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The 4 Hall-effect thrusters are at the rear of the Tianhe-1, and use Xenon as their propellant. They are the HET-80 from the Shanghai Institute of Space Technology. Thanks to
@AJ_FI
@raz_liu
@ClosertoSpace
@SegerYu
for helping me figure that one out a couple of weeks ago.
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Interesting bits from an interview of the CSS systems commander Wang Xiang last week on a 4th module:
➡️It's currently in a preliminary design phase (先期设计)
➡️Can enable foreign spacecraft & entire modules to dock
➡️Can host inflatable modules to enable larger science payloads
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China's manned space agency (CMS) just published a paper requesting for proposals regarding "low-cost cargo transportation for space station operations".
The paper included requirements for delivery of cargo to the Chinese space station & return of cargo to Earth. 🌏🚀🇨🇳
(1/5)
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The Chinese commercial company
#OrbitFuture
(轨道未来), founded in 2021, is planning to develop on-orbit servicing. The Reach-1 spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2024, will provide station-keeping, orbit transfer, deorbiting & inspection services. Total weight: 500 kg.
(1/4)
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[Opinion on the 🇺🇸-🇨🇳 space race]
While it is common to hear that
#China
has a long-term planning approach in space and is not in a rush, I don't think the notion of "race" can entirely be dismissed. When you listen to interviews from CN officials, there IS concern about...(1/5)
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CN launch startup
#iSpace
completed verification tests of its upcoming Hyperbola-2 rocket grid fin control surfaces, getting one step closer to performing hops 🚀
These grid fins are new & more sophisticated than the ones already tested by iSpace on the Hyperbola-1.
(1/4) 👇
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Fun fact of the day: why did
#GalacticEnergy
paint its rockets black but later switched to white?🤔
⚫GE wants to maximize the use of carbon fiber. Black paint highlighted this choice.
⚪BUT it induced heating in the payload fairings (notably in summer), thus the switch to white.
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So apparently Chinese commercial launch companies Space Pioneer and Space Epoch both want to launch from the future
#Wenchang
commercial launch center.
The list of companies launching from Wenchang is growing longer (Deep Blue Aerospace, iSpace, China Rocket, CALT...).
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Chinese launch company CAS Space just raised 600 million CNY (~$US 87 million) a few days ago.
The main investors are Guangzhou Industrial Investment (state-owned), CAS Investment and CAS Capital (both linked to the Chinese Academy of Sciences).
Compare that to Landspace...
(1/3)
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Fantastic 4K footage of the maiden launch of the Gravity-1 😍
This solid-fueled rocket is from Chinese commercial company
#Orienspace
. China is seriously growing its sea launch capabilities, this is the 4th “sea launch-ready” rocket type, with more to come (Jielong-4, Tianlong-2)
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Big funding round from Chinese hypersonic vehicle company Space Transportation (凌空天行).
RMB 300M round, led by Matrix Partners China and a Shanghai gov. fund, will go towards tech verification for a suborbital spaceplane, among other things 🇨🇳🚀🛰️
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After playing around a bit with Photoshop...
Here's the Long March 8A, to be launched at Wenchang in a couple of weeks!😁
(original render on the left by
#CALT
)
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So there’s a good chance I also get to interview
@cas_space
this week. Any questions you would like me to ask them? I already have quite a few in mind 😬
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New CGI animation of China’s crewed lunar mission at the end of the decade
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I’ll be at the
@parisairshow
this week, if you’re attending and want to catch up, feel free to send me a DM!
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Most thrusters are situated on the non-pressurized propulsion compartment at the very back of the Tianhe-1: a compartment that has a diameter of 4.2m & a height of 2.1m. This area is literally full of propellant! Its dry mass is 487 kg, but weighs 4.3 tons once fueled up...
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A lot happening on the Chinese Space Station in 2022, with multiple lab modules and taikonaut missions bound for low earth orbit.
We break down the upcoming activities in full, in what will be a busy year! 🇨🇳 🛰️ 🚀 👨🏻🚀
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Chinese rocket engine manufacturer
#JiuzhouYunjian
(a.k.a. JZYJ) performed a variable thrust hot fire test of their Lingyun methalox engine this week. The thrust was throttled from 100% to 38% in several incremental steps. Bonus: nice footage of the test🤓
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The PR from
#Landspace
is really a big step up compared to traditional Chinese launch firms.
I just watched their 15-min video on the Zhuque-2.
It's really well put together, and there's much less of the patriotic "we did this first" approach you sometimes find on national TV.
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Here's a high-res view of the new water basins dug around the launchpads LC-101 and LC-201 in
#Wenchang
. I believe it's unclear what they are for at the moment.
I preferred the previous green/tropical island look though 😕
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#SpacePioneer
seems to be the next Chinese commercial company to attempt a liquid-fueled launch.
A singular feature of their Tianlong-2 rocket is that it can launch from any flat concrete surface: a TEL transports & erects the rocket, and tanker trucks provide propellant on-site.
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7
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Chinese state-owned launch company China Rocket (中国火箭) will apparently launch a "new medium-lift launch vehicle with a stronger payload capacity" in 2024.
This is likely the Jielong-4 rocket, using the 3.5m diameter SP150 solid-fueled engines I believe (picture below 👇)
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This Starship-like fully reusable Lijian/PR-3 (also known as Kinetica-3) is completely different from the previous architecture, on which we wrote a thread 6 months ago 👇
@cas_space
is putting its efforts behind the development of the PR-3 (aka Kinetica 3) liquid-fueled rocket. This is a big step up from its solid-fueled PR-1 rocket, in service since 2022, with a capacity of 7.8 tons to SSO when expendable.
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*New episode*
🇨🇳🇷🇺🚀 Updates on Sino-Russian space ties
🇨🇳🇺🇸🛰️ A report on Sino-US space perceptions,
🚗🛰️🚀 Major announcement from
@GeelyGroup
about their
#satellite
manufacturing plans
Check out the latest, only at the
@DongFangHour
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It was the mid-autumn festival in China yesterday, a period where the Chinese eat Moon Cakes.
Was going through the CCTV livestream of
#Tianzhou3
again, and realized that the moon cakes in the launch control center had things like "launch success" (圆满成功) etched into them 😁
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Just came across this Long March 5
#LEGO
project by
@Matthew_Nolan1
🤩
Great details + it includes the mobile launch platform to scale. You can give it a vote on Lego Ideas, the project needs 10k votes to see the day 👇
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First, some context: At least 15+ commercial launch companies have been formed since 2014.
Although this seems like a excessive number, a consolidation has not taken place (yet) as most companies are still early stage and supported by VC money & local governments.
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Just watched the interview of Li Dong (chief designer of the Long March 5) on CCTV. Interestingly, he says that discussions to design a LM5-class rocket started as early as 1986 (1986年就开始论证)👀
This lasted ~20 yrs, before the rocket was officially approved in the mid-2000s.
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China's newish space station is an engineering marvel, and it's not even close to being completed yet.
Haven't heard much about it?
We've got you covered, with a deep-dive article + episode at the new Dongfang Hour website below 👇
🇨🇳🛰️🚀
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Big presence by CASIC at this year's Zhuhai Air Show, with the company showing off their various commercial space initiatives.
Overall, much bigger space presence at this year's show than previous years, good indicator for the industry's future trajectory 🇨🇳🚀🛰️
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Just bought some rice noodles from the local Asian store, and realized it’s the brand that sponsored the Kuaizhou-1A launch on August 10 😅
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Most of these rockets are meant to be reusable. Some are designed to be reusable from the start (DBA, iSpace, …) which others (Landspace) want to modify the rockets at a later stage to do so.
Linkspace & DBA (and iSpace soon) have conducted "hops" with single stage prototypes.
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One of the big challenges for Chinese commercial launch companies is insurance premiums. Check out these figures from a Chinese space
#insurance
company:
👉For a newly introduced rocket from a commercial company, we're looking at premiums at 15-20%+💀
(1/3)
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Attitude control is not only performed by thrusters. The Tianhe-1 has 6 control moment gyros (CMGs) which are situated on the outside of the Tianhe-1 to avoid creating too much noise for the living quarters of the taikonauts (CMG = heavy disk spinning fast = vibrations, noise)
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Finally going through the Dec 2022 CCAF presentations. I'll be posting anything interesting in the coming days. Here's
#CASSpace
's future PR-3 Heavy rocket:
➡️Maiden launch in 2026
➡️Single stage architecture + 2 side boosters
➡️13.8t to 500km SSO (expendable), 10.5t (reusable)
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4
30
Galactic Energy had some major accomplishments in 2021, not least the 2nd successful launch of the Ceres-1 rocket.
We got to speak with Systems Engineer Liu Hong about the company's development, future goals, and hotpot, debrief below 👇🚀🇨🇳 🍲
(1/2)
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