Thousands of kilometers away, on Earth and in space, the United States and China have launched a real war of innovation, and to respond to SpaceX, Beijing took advantage of the 15e edition of the Zhuhai air show, in Guangdon province, to unveil its anti-Starship “weapon”.
This is a new version of the Long March 9 rocket, the development of which will be carried out in two stages. First as a heavy launcher (up to 150 tonnes payload) to increase access to space, then as a fully reusable two-stage configuration to reduce costs and increase launch frequency. Exactly on the Starship model, which measures 122 meters, compared to 114 for its Chinese competitor, for an equivalent maximum payload.
A net to collect the first part of the rocket
In an animation, we have confirmation that the first stage will deploy hooks before beginning its return to Earth. It then performs a landing burn, to target an offshore platform where rails will act as a net to attach the hooks and recover the rocket part. A system somewhat different from that of SpaceX, tested in October on Super Heavy.
In the same animation, we also see the return to Earth of the upper stage with a return to the atmosphere like an airplane, before a vertical landing. “The heavy rocket has a capacity of 100 tons in low Earth orbit and 50 tons in lunar transfer orbit, which can cover the launch needs of various space missions from low orbit to space exploration distant,” says Chen Ziyu, a designer at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
China wants to create a lunar research station
For China, the development of Long March 9 will be useful for many ongoing projects such as sending astronauts to the Moon, the construction of its own international lunar research station in the 2030s, but also the design of a space solar farm in geostationary orbit. As with NASA, the goal is twofold: to reduce costs, while accelerating the conquest of space.
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