China beginning work on 3,000 ton thrust rocket.

[MKSheppard]

Link

Rocket To Go To Moon Under Design
Beijing, China (XNA) Mar 09, 2010

A new heavy-thrust carrier rocket is under scientific research, with the goal of sending astronauts to the moon, scientists said.

Although there is no official timetable yet for China's moon landing, scientists are researching a new powerful carrier rocket with a lift-off thrust of 3,000 tons, Liang Xiaohong, vice-president of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told China Daily on Thursday.

"The heavy-thrust launcher's lift-off thrust will be three times that of the Long March-5, China's current largest launcher," said Liang, who is also a member of the 11th CPPCC national committee.

The large-thrust Long March-5 launch vehicle has a lift-off thrust of 1,000 tons, which enables it to send a maximum payload of 25 tons to the near-Earth orbit and a payload of 10 tons to the higher geo-stationary orbit. Designed for transporting heavyweight satellites and space stations, it is slated to take off in 2014, according to Liang.

Compared to the Long March-5, the heavy-thrust launcher will be more powerful, but its payload capacity is still under discussion, he said.

The Long March-5 is also likely to be used in the preparatory stage of a future moon landing, he added.

China is currently studying the feasibility of a moon landing, despite US President Barack Obama's decision to kill NASA's $100-billion plans to return astronauts to the moon.

Bao Weimin, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a CPPCC national committee member, said: "A moon landing program is very necessary, because it could drive the country's scientific and technological development."

Besides the heavy-thrust carrier rocket under study, the academy is also developing a new family of carrier rockets for future space programs.

"The Long March-6 will be a small-thrust carrier rocket, and the Long March-7 will be a medium-thrust launch vehicle. Together with the Long March-5, they will form a family that can cover all necessities for launch vehicles and replace the current carrier rockets," Liang said.

So far, the Long March-5 project has entered the testability analysis stage, he added.

About 100,000 square meters of workshops have been completed so far at a new base being built in the Binhai New Area of the northern coastal city of Tianjin. The facility will be used for testing and manufacturing the Long March-5. Construction began last year with an investment of 1.5 billion yuan ($220 million), Liang said.

Eventually, a total investment of 10 billion yuan will be poured into the base, which will be able to produce a maximum of 12 Long March-5 launch vehicles each year, he said.

Qi Faren, former chief designer of Shenzhou spaceships and a CPPCC national committee member, said on Thursday that the Long March-5 will be used to launch China's space station mission.

"We aim to send the core module of the space station into orbit before 2020. Without the large-thrust launcher, the 20-ton core module cannot be in place," he said.

Before that, however, the first task of the Long March 5 may be to send the Fengyun-4 weather satellite into space from the launch center under construction at Wenchang in Hainan, China's southern island province, according to Liang.

The new Fengyun-4 satellite, which is under design, weighs about eight to nine tons, which cannot be lifted by the current launchers that can carry a maximum payload of 5.2 tons to geo-stationary orbit, he added.

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BTW, the mighty SATURN FIVE had 3,800 tons of thrust in the first stage....food for thought..

[K. A. Pital]

Pretty good, I say.

You can't go from Soyuz (R-7 family) equivalents to Energia level thrust straightaway (unless you just buy the RD-170 for licensed production, in which case your rocket industry isn't really developing). It took for the USSR with it's colossal rocket engine development industry 30 years.

Hope the Chinese make their RD-170 analogue in 20 years or so and a correspondingly cool uber-rocket - after all, catching up is a little easier than walking the whole road on your own.

[Zor]

Once again, good for China for furthering to expand mankind's reach to the stards. Hopefully the sight of a Astronaut waving thr Five Star flag on the moon while humming March of the Volunteers will prompt another space race.

Zor

[loomer]

I hope to god that the Norwegian amateur team beat them to the punch. They're only 3 years off from manned sub-orbital spaceflight, and I would love to see private non-commercial moon landings before anyone else can get there again.

[Sarevok]

Private non commercial ventures beating China to the moon ?

Hahahahahha ! You are insane or making a bad joke. China orbited numerous Satelites, they put a man in space and brought him back. And their space program is funded by the chineese economy - one of the most powerful in the world. You think a bunch of cash starved enterpreneurs who dont even have a manned rocket can beat the worlds premier manufacuting powerhouse country pouring its immense assets for national prestige ?

[Darth Tanner]

They're only 3 years off from manned sub-orbital spaceflight

If they have not even achieved sub orbital yet then I seriously doubt their chances of beating a huge nation state like China to the moon!

What exactly are China's objectives with reaching the moon, is it simply patriotic dick waving or do they have genuine plans of operating a research base or eventual resource extraction.

[K. A. Pital]

I hope to god that the Norwegian amateur team beat them to the punch.

Why? Norwegian amateurs have a lot less resource to boot, the development will go a lot slower, the power a lot less than possible modern rocket boosters. Not to mention all the safety issues.

So why do you want for China's space program to stall for such a long time to allow some amateurs to reach the Moon ahead of China? That is hardly possible unless China collapses. So why do you want it to be so?

[loomer]

I know, I know. Pipe dream. But a man CAN dream, damn it! A man can dream!

[K. A. Pital]

That's not a pipe dream... that's pure wank.

Tony Stark is not real (neither are micro-thermonuclear hearts and, in this case, small private rockets ferrying people from Earth to Moon); folks should get over it.

[Surlethe]

Pretty good, I say.

You can't go from Soyuz (R-7 family) equivalents to Energia level thrust straightaway (unless you just buy the RD-170 for licensed production, in which case your rocket industry isn't really developing). It took for the USSR with it's colossal rocket engine development industry 30 years.

How long did it take the US? (11 years from Mercury initiation to Apollo 11, right?)

[Shroom Man 777]

Stas, won't advanced materials sciences, computers, and the benefit of doing it when others have already done it before, significantly cut down the time China needs for its moonshot?

[K. A. Pital]

Pretty good, I say.

You can't go from Soyuz (R-7 family) equivalents to Energia level thrust straightaway (unless you just buy the RD-170 for licensed production, in which case your rocket industry isn't really developing). It took for the USSR with it's colossal rocket engine development industry 30 years.

How long did it take the US? (11 years from Mercury initiation to Apollo 11, right?)

Yeah, about that. The USA engineering clearly progressed to extreme thrust very fast. The RD-170 is slightly more powerful than F-1, but it took twice the time, 26 years, to develop for a catching-up nation like the USSR. China is more comparable to the catch-up industrialization nations (of which the USSR was one), and therefore faces the roughly the same problems (steel quality, necessary brainpower and accumulated knowledge for such complex engineering, etc.).

I'm not sure how engine development terms have been accelerated now, when the RD-170-basd tech has been fairly widespread among many nations. Perhaps it does take less time for China, although I bet it's about 20 years all in all.

Stas, won't advanced materials sciences, computers, and the benefit of doing it when others have already done it before, significantly cut down the time China needs for its moonshot?

Computer modeling and spread of advanced engine technologies certainly may do it. But the steel industry is critical. If China manages to make the necessary steels and materials (which are a hugely guarded industrial secret in USA, Soviet Union and just about any nation with serious missile/rocket technologies), they have the way open.

They certainly reached the ability to make materials that USSR and USA had in the 1950s, but I'm not sure they have reached a degree of advanced metal chemistry required for the more powerful rockets. In any case, they are rapidly closing on it. The space station to rise next year is a proof they're serious about increasing payloads.