China’s main space contractor has unveiled an updated concept of the Long March 9, a fully reusable rocket designed for the lunar program. Its design is very similar to Starship.
China has been working on the Long March 9 super-heavy rocket for several years. It is necessary for the realization of the Celestial Empire’s highly ambitious space plans, the main one being the International Lunar Exploration Station. The super-heavy rocket will also be needed to build a space solar power plant in geostationary orbit and deploy two low-orbit mega-satellite constellations (analogs of Starlink), each with about 13,000 vehicles.
The Long March 9 was originally a classic 10-meter diameter, kerosene-fueled, single-use rocket with four side boosters. But its design was subsequently changed several times. Apparently impressed by the success of SpaceX, the designers initially wanted to equip it with a reentry first stage. Then, it was announced that Long March 9 would use methane as fuel. Now, at the Zhuhai Airshow, designers said they wanted to make the rocket fully reusable.
If you look at the layout of the new version of Long March 9, as well as the animation video prepared by Chinese engineers, it is easy to make a guess where they are still “borrowing” the main ideas. Now the rocket looks a lot like Starship. In the video, its large first stage can be seen deploying its grid fins and performing a Super Heavy-style landing approach. Then it performs a landing maneuver, heading for the offshore platform. The platform has movable rails that close to capture the stage so that the aerodynamic grids are directly above or resting on the rails.
Another part of the video shows an upper stage similar to Starship. It performs a distinctive re-entry maneuver known as a “belly flop” and then completes the landing by descending vertically using its engines.
According to Chinese engineers, the new version of the Long March 9 will be able to launch 100 tons of cargo into low orbit and up to 50 tons of cargo to the Moon. When exactly its first flight will take place is still unknown. Before the Long March 9’s redesign, 2033 was named as the likely date for its debut.
Historically, the PRC has used the name “Long March” to refer to all of its rockets. Earlier we covered the way it happened and how not to get confused by the many Chinese “Long March” rockets.
Provided by Spacenews
