The third space power to have sent a man into space, China would like to make our satellite its new playground. In this spirit, the country is currently working on the development of a new rocket capable of taking its taikonauts to the Moon.
China has made tremendous progress in the space field in recent years. More recently, the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) distinguished itself by successfully depositing a rover "on the other side" of the Moon. Never seen. On July 28, China also launched its Tianwen-1 mission, heading for Mars. As a reminder, it is planned to place an orbiter around the planet and deploy a rover on the surface. A first for the Chinese space agency. Without forgetting its future station – Tiangong – which will soon succeed the ISS.
That said, China has an even greater ambition:to land men on the Moon . In this spirit, the CNSA presented two years ago a new super heavy launcher project:the Long March 9, developed specifically to launch crewed missions to our satellite. Recently, China decided to change its plans, focusing on the development of another rocket . The announcement was made during the China Space Conference held on September 18 in Fuzhou, in the east of the country.
The rocket, which has not yet been named, will be 87 meters high . It will be able to send a 27.6 ton spacecraft in trans-lunar orbit. Its take-off weight will be approximately 2200 tons , nearly three times the size of the current largest Chinese rocket, the Long March 5. It will also consist of three cores of five meters in diameter each, similar in style to the two American heavy launchers:United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy, and SpaceX's Falcon Heavy.
Finally, this launcher would normally rely on YF-100K engines, which burn liquid oxygen and kerosene, currently being developed for the Long March 5. Additional information has, however, been communicated. We just know that this rocket is being designed at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) of Beijing. No test flights have yet been announced.
Regarding this lunar program, here again, the information is still a little vague. China had already announced in 2016 its intention to send a man to the Moon by 2036. More recently, the country had also suggested the idea of installing a permanent station on the Moon from 2030. Nevertheless, the CNSA remains today faces major challenges. Zhou Yanfei, deputy general designer of China's human spaceflight program, agrees:
“We still lack survivability in extraterrestrial circumstances” , he admitted to Chinese media. “We don’t have any experience in this area yet. We also have no ground support capability. So far, our crewed space exploration missions have focused on low Earth orbit tasks. .
The project is indeed damn ambitious. If successful, China could then become the second country to send men to the moon. As a reminder, to date, only the United States has been able to do so. The Soviets tried it, but without success.
