The rocket, developed by private aerospace company Sepoch, launched and landed without issue. A full orbital launch of the Yuanzheng-Zhe 1 rocket is scheduled for later this year.
  • freagle@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    12·
    10 days ago

    China’s gonna do reusable rockets and not have constant explosions and crash landings while SpaceX had a multi-year headstart and will still be exploding and crashing well into the '30s.

  • big_spoon@lemmygrad.ml
    8·
    9 days ago

    space corporation in capitalist “freedom”

    makes useless and expensive trinkets unfit for space

    space corporations guided by “repressive” socialism

    makes a useful device

  • ☭CommieWolf☆@lemmygrad.ml
    5·
    9 days ago

    If they can actually make this design of spacecraft function where Spacex has crashed and burned for years, that will really be a massive engineering breakthrough.

    After the consistent failures and redesigns of the Spacex craft, I was pretty strongly convinced that this type of vehicle must have been fundamentally flawed.

    This looks good, but I’m not going to be convinced until one of these is able to get to orbit and back. Still think it’s a bit far fetched.

    • knfrmity@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      I’m not sure that the technical concept is fundamentally flawed, it’s just that “agile” project management philosophy was never meant to apply to rocketry.

      I don’t say this as a Musk/SpaceX fanboy in any way, I just don’t think the failures of the Starship design are comparable to failures of a traditionally managed rocketry project like the Space Shuttle due to the differences in management philosophy.

      • ☭CommieWolf☆@lemmygrad.ml
        5·
        9 days ago

        We’ll see, I’m sure. Best case scenario here is that the Chinese space program actually pulls it off, at worst they figure out why it may not be feasible and shelf the idea until they come up with solutions. None of this “crash it repeatedly until it works” nonsense.

      • sudo_halt@lemmygrad.ml
        4·
        8 days ago

        Agile doesn’t work that well ANYWHERE, especially in software. A lot of devs burn out purely because of that silicon valley nepokid bullshit

  • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
    2·
    8 days ago

    I will stand by forever that landing it in the vertical orientation is the wrong way to land a rocket, and it should land on its belly. That would provide a much more stable landing.

    Sure the Vertical landing looks cooler, but it adds extra unneeded complication, when if you could have anything that can act like wings, you can glide it down onto its belly far easier

    • ☭CommieWolf☆@lemmygrad.ml
      1·
      7 days ago

      Likely something to do with aerodynamics and weight distribution. Aircraft and rocket design are very different, and the glaring problem with designing the booster to fly back like a plane is the fact that the payload is mounted on top, meaning you can’t have a tapered end, since you’ve got to be able to mount a full second stage rocket on top with 20+ tons of mass. So the problem becomes, how can you make a functional airplane out of what is basically a giant steel cylinder with a flat top on one end, and rocket boosters on the other. Also when it flies back, it’s going to be bottom heavy, as most of the fuel mass will be gone, leaving all the heavy rocket engine weight dragging it down.

    • Munrock ☭@lemmygrad.ml
      3·
      8 days ago

      I’ve always assumed that they land vertically because the entire vehicle is designed and optimised to withstand huge forces along that axis already, while being as light as possible.

      Meanwhile a rocket that will land on its side will have to be designed to withstand impacts and forces (albeit smaller ones) from completely different angles, so I don’t think we’ll see that kind of design until the weight added by the additional lifting surfaces and structural reinforcement is less than the weight of the fuel needed for landing vertically.

      • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
        2·
        8 days ago

        I know Space X does it because elon musk said that was how old cartoons did it, I cannot remember the exact wording but its because Elon wanted it.

        I have no proof but my assumption is that this is “well they are doing it this way” and it just all lines up assuming that the predissessor has thought it through

        • Munrock ☭@lemmygrad.ml
          3·
          8 days ago

          Hopefully the Chinese scientists aren’t just uncritically copying SpaceX. I doubt Chinese technology would be pulling ahead so rapidly in so many fields if they were!

  • marl_karx@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    1·
    8 days ago

    why is every nation now going for this instead of space shuttles? isnt this just a vertical space shuttle?

    • ☭CommieWolf☆@lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      7 days ago

      It’s literally just the US and China that are testing this afaik.

      The main reason is for saving costs, as they’re meant to be fully reusable heavy lift vehicles (capable of putting over 20 tons into orbit) which is something that doesn’t currently exist yet. The space shuttle was the last heavy lift vehicle that attempted partial re-usability, but it still required a massive expendable external tank and booster rockets, which made launch costs still very high. Not to mention the space shuttle was also extremely dangerous, and there was no launch escape system to abort astronauts from a failed launch, and it was statistically also the most dangerous space vehicle to ever fly.

      These new things being developed on the other hand, idk what to call them, are supposedly the next evolution in heavy lift vehicles. But seeing as how they too don’t seem to have any launch safety systems, and so far have not succeeded a single orbital launch, are still not very convincing solutions.

      • marl_karx@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        ESA is testing them too or planning to test them. I support the idea very much, it ultimately saves on resources and makes launchibg safer because of the reduction of waste in orbit, so fewer collisions happen, also with waste hitting sattelites.