A Chinaese company, LandSpace, is attempting to imitate what Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, does when building and launching rockets into space. This company, founded in Beijing, China, recently conducted a rocket launch of one of its products that could automatically return the rocket to Earth after launch. LandSpace is now preparing to issue public stocks so that it can fund its next ventures at a period when its competitor in the U.S. is also contemplating issuing stocks.
Although the initial test flights of the rocket of LandSpaces and its first attempt at reaching space with the rocket, Zhuque-3, have not yet ended with success and resulted in failure. The aim to become only the second company globally with a reusable rocket is helping to inject life into China’s space program. For many years, China’s space projects were dominated by government institutions that did not like to take large risks.
“They’re willing to push the products to the very limit, including failures, so that they learn quickly and quickly solve the problem,” stated the key designer of the Zhuque 3 launch vehicle. He further stated that the reason for leaving the main Government rocket maker to LandSpace, the company he currently works for, consisted of his admiration for the focus of the SpaceX firm on the reuse of the hardware they used.
They’re willing to push the products to the very limit, including failures, so that they learn quickly and quickly solve the problem, stated the key designer of the Zhuque 3 launch vehicle.
Learning from the American Leader
The overall intended purpose of LandSpaces is to provide China with its own affordable launch solution for things, similar to the already proven Falcon 9 reusable rocket developed by SpaceX. The affordable launch solution will play a crucial role in the Chinese plan to establish a massive constellation of around 10,000 satellites in the coming years.
The deputy designer for the rocket stated that the reason the Falcon 9 works is that it is a proven rocket that has been tested numerous times. He stated that now that they have studied the design, they realise why the rocket is designed the way that it is, calling it learning, but not simple imitation. He stated that the reaction to the Zhuque-3 being called the ‘Chinese Falcon 9’ is a tremendous compliment.
Rapid testing, as is the case with SpaceX, is already introducing a major shift to how space work is being done in China. China’s government space program has always strived to make sure that there has never been a failed mission before, unlike SpaceX and Western companies that freely discuss failures to learn.
Recently, however, the state-funded news program covered China’s first failure attempts to return a reusable rocket booster. The second failure came from a government company just a short time after the LandSpaces test. The space industry is finally ready to face the reality that a part of the process of creating something involves smashing things.
New Ideas for Cheaper Space Trips To make it cheaper to launch objects into space, the companies, SpaceX and LandSpace, are considering new approaches in the design of their rockets. The new approaches include the utilisation of special materials, namely stainless steel, and a special fuel mix referred to as methalox. However, the most crucial step in cutting costs, as Musk has pointed out, would be to be able to launch a rocket, have it return, and then reuse the engine compartment.
LandSpace’s recent crash was due to the booster not igniting its engine to land smoothly, but only when it was 3 kilometres away from Earth, and so it crashed to Earth instead of landing safely on Earth. They should take heart from SpaceX, which took two attempts before narrowly managing to land their falcon booster safely in 2015.
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