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The Chinese could have a reusable booster before then. One of their companies is doing 10 km hop tests.
by thinkcontext 2y ago
The Chinese could have a reusable booster before then. One of their companies is doing 10 km hop tests.
- signatoremo 2y agoSpaceX couldn’t manage the first Falcon 9 landing until 2015. The first Falcon 9 reuse wasn’t until 2018, so 3 years to achieve reusability. The Chinese prototype hasn’t yet succeeded at sub-orbital landing. I wouldn’t be surprise if it’d take them longer than 3 years to have a reusable rocket. Starship would have been routine at that time. Blue Origin plans to launch New Glenn in a month, with landing planned. They are a wild card.
- jiggawatts 2y agoI’m not saying they stole the plans through industrial espionage, I’m just wiggling my eyebrows suggestively while glancing in the direction of the suspiciously similar looking booster.
- ls612 2y agoIs this the same company that had their booster fly into the air when they were trying to static fire test it?
- jiggawatts 2y agoThey must have forgotten to steal the plans for the hold down clamps.
- m4rtink 2y agoWell, that kinda shows a potentially another speed "advantage" - less paperwork and reduced safety requirements.
- Kerb_ 2y agoI promise you the fancy technology is in the electronics, software, and implementation, and not the fact that the cylinder with legs looks like another cylinder with legs
- adastra22 2y agoIt’s a literal clone of starship, down to the flaps and grid fins.
- Tier3r 2y agoChinese startups have historically been the only ones to be able to move as fast as Musk. One very underrated ability of Tesla is they can develop new products in 2-3 years from conception to market. The only other car companies to do it at scale is BYD, Nio and Xpeng. The company he is talking about is probably LandSpace. They got from conception to hop test in what seems to be 5, maybe 4 years. SpaceX took 7.
- shirro 2y agoI think China has about 5 companies working on reusable launch and it is part of a national government strategy. People can argue about the timeline but it is inevitable.