Jul 092018
 

China reveals details for super-heavy-lift Long March 9 and reusable Long March 8 rockets

Long March 8: meant to emulate the Falcon 9 with a vertically-recovered core, but also use vertically-recovered solid rocket boosters (likely via parachute, though art seems to indicate that they too will have landing legs).

Long March 9: intended to be Saturn V class for manned missions to the Moon and beyond.

No indication that the Long March 9 is aiming for reusability, so it seems likely that the Chinese are emulating not the BFR but the SLS. It is too much to hope that China will emulate the spectacular economics of the SLS as well.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:31 pm