The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology presented a concept of a suborbital spacecraft capable of transporting humans anywhere on the planet from space. And this vehicle, you will be able to see, looks strangely like the SpaceX Starship.
This weekend, China celebrated its sixth " National Space Day " in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu. During this event, several lunar samples from the Chang'e-5 mission were displayed to the public. Chinese officials also announced the name of their first Mars rover, which will attempt to land in mid-May. But one project is of particular interest to us.
A stand, that of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the main manufacturer of Chinese state rockets, indeed revealed several concepts of suborbital vehicles. The idea:to transport humans anywhere on the planet in record time.
Several companies are preparing to enter a new market:that of commercial suborbital flights. One of the most promising concepts is none other than that proposed by SpaceX. Primarily developed to transport large payloads to the Moon and Mars, the interplanetary and reusable Starship will also be able to transport large quantities of cargo and humans around the Earth.
Musk first pitched this idea in 2017, envisioning suborbital flights between spaceports off major cities. A video released at the time promised a flight time between New York and Shanghai of only 39 minutes, and advertised the ability to get "anywhere on Earth in less than an hour".
Originally, these robberies were to rely on both stages of the vehicle, namely the Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Then, in 2019, SpaceX revealed that these suborbital flights might only use the Starship. In order to meet the thrust requirements, such a suborbital craft would then have to equip itself with several additional Raptor engines (two to four, according to Musk).
That being said, it seems that the SpaceX inspired the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. A promotional video, captured and shared on the Chinese social network Weibo, reveals two concepts of commercial suborbital vehicles likely to be developed over the next decade.
As you can see from the images (see here), the first concept bears a striking resemblance to the Starship vehicle, not only in appearance, but also in function. The second concept proposed in the Chinese video shows us a vehicle propelled horizontally by a kind of electromagnetic catapult.
These two systems fit into previously announced plans by China that aim to deliver cargo worldwide via suborbital flight by 2035 and then passengers from 'here 2045.
It would not be the first time that the Chinese space program has taken a close interest in SpaceX. During the company's very first launch in 2006, a spy ship was indeed in the small stretch of ocean where the first stage of the Falcon 1 rocket was due to return.
And Elon Musk's society inspires. More recently, in 2019, China's Long March 2C rocket tested "mesh fins" similar to those used by the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to steer through the atmosphere during the re-entry process. We know that China also intends to develop the Long March 8 rocket to land on a maritime platform, as the Falcon 9 boosters currently do.
