Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
China

China Reveals a New Heavy Lift Rocket That Is a Clone of SpaceX's Starship (arstechnica.com) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal dept.
Ars Technica's Eric Berger reports: When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country's first super heavy lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides. Since then, the Asian country has been revising the design of this rocket, named Long March 9, in response to the development of reusable rockets by SpaceX. As of two years ago, China had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage. Now, based on information released at a major airshow in Zhuhai, China, the design has morphed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX's Starship rocket.

Based on its latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket will have a fully reusable first stage powered by 30 YF-215 engines, which are full-flow staged combustion engines fueled by methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of approximately 200 tons. By way of comparison, Starship's first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines, also fueled with methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of about 280 tons. The new specifications also include a fully reusable configuration of the rocket, with an upper stage that looks eerily similar to Starship's second stage, complete with flaps in a similar location. According to a presentation at the airshow, China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, nearly a decade from now. Last week, Chinese space startup Cosmoleap announced plans to develop a fully reusable "Leap" rocket with the next few years. "An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement indicated that the company seeks to emulate the tower catch-with-chopsticks methodology that SpaceX successfully employed during Starship's fifth flight test last month," reports Ars.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

China Reveals a New Heavy Lift Rocket That Is a Clone of SpaceX's Starship More

China Reveals a New Heavy Lift Rocket That Is a Clone of SpaceX's Starship

Comments Filter:

  • it's not fair, it never was, to the people at the top, this looks like us versus them and they don't lose, these things go as far as they can

    i'm tired of being manipulated by you /.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

      people can't just post anonymously anymore, that's total bs

      • Swastika man ruined it for everyone.

  • China Reveals a New Heavy Lift Rocket That Is a Clone of SpaceX's Starship

    Clone? Last time I looked 'clone' meant an exact component for component copy. That does not look like an exact slavish copy unless Musk has obtained an insanely broad patent on cylindrically shaped launch vehicles with a rounded pointy nose section fins on sides and rocket engines at the back end and if somebody wants to point at the canards as evidence of 'cloning', the concept of canard control surfaces have been around since the Wright Flyer in 1903 which was literally the first aircraft capable of sust

    • Excuse me, China bad, ok?

    • According to your definition, Buran wasn't a clone of the Space Shuttle either, because NASA didn't have a patent on space-plane-looking craft designed to operate in some extremely specific manner. Never mind that some other country did all the R&D, engineering and flight testing to prove the design was feasible in the first place.

      Give me a break. You know the situation has become desperate when they must copy a design to this degree. What I'm really curious about is if China bothered to make their own

      • The Soviets had their own space shuttle designs with their own research on shapes. Take a look at the Spiral spaceplane for example.
        The problem is the Soviet designers got a directive from the politicians at the top to replicate the capabilities of the US Shuttle, which they suspected was some sort of orbital bomber, and they ended up changing the design of both the launcher and the orbiter.

      • What do you mean, desperate? Why NOT use a design that seems pretty tested by now, why bother completely designing it from the ground up? Let's not forget, it's still isn't easy to actually build and fly it. Also there really isn't much difference in design if you want the best aerodynamic shape for the current knowledge we have and to actually also build it. Even the rockets from SpaceX look like earlier available rockets.

    • Re:Clone? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by v1 ( 525388 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2024 @08:53AM (#64924277) Homepage Journal

      Well it is a bit like the Buran, russia's "clone" of the space shuttle. It certainly had its differences, but it's impossible to look at it and not see the similarity. Calling it a "copy" or a "clone" is probably too harsh, but it's definitely a ripoff of mos of the major design elements. It's hard to blame them - rocket science is expensive and time-consuming. Taking advantage of the hard work and expense that the Other Guy has invested is somewhere between extremely tempting and the obviously right choice.

      BUT after getting the whole "china copies everything" out of the way... I still approve of it. Expanding space exploration isn't an american or chinese thing, it's a human thing, and it's something we all need to be working together on. And not polluting space with junk is a HUGE deal. So I have no problem at all with them copying design elements from a successful reusable rocket. Anything that keeps trash out of LEO gets my thumbs up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Burn wasn't a copy either. It's just that there is an optimal shape for a space plane, a vehicle that has to re-enter the atmosphere, slow down, and glide to land. It has to have wings that shape for those kinds of speeds, and a big control surface on the tail. With the current state of the art there is no other viable shape.

        Beyond those superficial similarities, Buran was a very different vehicle. No main engines, larger crew and payload capacity, different mission profiles as a result.

      • Well it is a bit like the Buran, russia's "clone" of the space shuttle. It certainly had its differences, but it's impossible to look at it and not see the similarity. Calling it a "copy" or a "clone" is probably too harsh, but it's definitely a ripoff of most of the major design elements. It's hard to blame them - rocket science is expensive and time-consuming. Taking advantage of the hard work and expense that the Other Guy has invested is somewhere between extremely tempting and the obviously right choice.

        It’s true that the Buran shared a lot of external design similarities with NASA’s Space Shuttle. However, historical accounts suggest that the Soviets acquired some of the Shuttle’s design documents through espionage. Interestingly, these plans may have been deliberately flawed to mislead anyone trying to recreate the Shuttle directly. The Buran’s engineers made their own improvements to adapt it for Soviet technology, resulting in a vehicle with several key differences, like fully a

    • I mean, I can somewhat see it in this case. The idea of a tower block skydiving from space was really not on the table until a year or two ago. Suddenly china came up with the exact same idea!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BigFire ( 13822 )

      SpaceX don't do patent, they'll just be road map that Chinese entities can copy. They do trade secrets. I mean China doesn't recognize US patent law anyway.

      • China recognizes patent law.
        But like in any other jurisdiction: you have to register the patent.
        It is not automatically a patent in a different country, if you do not register it there.

    • Actually SpaceX open sourced their patents, anyone can use them, even the chinese. To me it is great that the chinese are also moving forward with reusable rockets, the sooner the better.
      • Imitation is flattery. Chinese can reverse engineer based on available information. Test and refine until they have a functional version they derived . Depends on how much info freely available vs theft if any. As noted Space X opens up .

  • Will they start making mini flame throwers, digging tunnels under Vegas and producing the ugliest truck ever conceived?!

    If they make an ugly af truck he should definitely sue! "There can be ... only one!" *lightning and thunder*

  • Good. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2024 @10:47AM (#64924709)

    We could use a nice space race again. And with all the anti-China sentiment we've been stirring over the past decade and some change, even the public might get on board with, "WE MUST BEAT CHINA TO THE MOON, TO MARS, TO $space_body." I hope they manage to get successful flights out of their design to stir up that competitive spirit in our space industry. It might just give us something to cheer for other than identity politics and shit-sandwiches of public discourse.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Maybe companies like SpaceX, but NASA? Good luck.

      • Maybe companies like SpaceX, but NASA? Good luck.

        Getting NASA to do anything more than funnel money to congressional districts would require congress to stop directing them to do nothing but shovel money to congressional districts. Maybe a good space race could shake loose the idiocy, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BigFire ( 13822 )

      As a Chinese living in America, I'm firmly against CCP. So spare me with your anti-China sentiment.

  • It seems like SpaceX did not learn from the Chinese breach of Lockheed systems that helped them clone the F35.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/business/theft-of-f-35-design-data-is-helping-us-adversaries-pentagon-idUSL2N0EV0T3/

    It is a well known fact that China is going after US industrial secrets far harder than it is going after American defense secrets. Seems like Musk has ignored the obvious threats, just like he did the obvious value of Twitter.
    • Except SpaceX has open sourced their patents, so no cybersecurity needed to break.
      • I was not aware of that. So, why China and not Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin?
        • Because china is more practical and Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin wanting their own patents so others can't use their technology or have them pay a lot.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by haruchai ( 17472 )

            Because china is more practical and Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin wanting their own patents so others can't use their technology or have them pay a lot.

            That makes no sense when they are so far behind. Nothing stopping them from coming up with patents yet still using open source ones.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Stop with the conspiracy theories.

      Random internet dudes and children are making rockets that land vertically. Once someone demonstrates it’s worth doing, actually making a fuel tank with flaps, an engine and a decent flight computer is fairly straightforward.

  • ... they copied the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly function accurately.

Slashdot Top Deals

Promising costs nothing, it's the delivering that kills you.

Close