China Ten Rockets per Year Larger than Saturn V Starting in 2030

The Saturn V rockets used to take man to the moon had the largest payload capacity to low earth orbit. They could take 118 tons into low earth orbit. China is planning to build the Long March 9 rocket that would have 20% more capacity. China is also planning to mass produce about ten super heavy Long March 9 rockets every year from 2030 to 2035. This would end up being sixty or more rockets. The White House just submitted a budget which could defer the US super heavy Space Launch System rocket.

If the SLS budget could defer construction of the larger Block 1B version. It would be far better for NASA and the USA to back the SpaceX Super Heavy Starship.

Li Hong, deputy general manager at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, said the Long March 9 super heavy-lift carrier rocket will be capable of lifting 140 metric tons of payload into a low-Earth orbit, or a 50-ton spacecraft to a lunar transfer orbit. It would have a 44-ton payload to a Mars transfer orbit.

Long March 9’s carrying capacity is five times that of the Long March 5-currently the strongest member of China’s carrier rocket family. The Long March 5 has a payload capacity of 25 tons to a low-Earth orbit.

Li also noted that the Long March 9 will have a length of nearly 100 meters and a diameter of 9.5 meters, and will be propelled by a new-generation liquid oxygen/kerosene engine with 500 tons of thrust power.

The Long March 9 has passed internal technical reviews by experts at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp and is awaiting government approval, said Shang Zhi, head of the company’s space exploration programs. Engineers are testing key parts.

The company estimates that about ten Long March 9 rockets will be needed each year from 2030 to 2035 in China to meet the nation’s robust demand in heavy-lift rockets at that time.

SOURCES- China.org.cn, Space.com

Written By Brian Wang

19 thoughts on “China Ten Rockets per Year Larger than Saturn V Starting in 2030”

  1. You can try to hodgepodge a political system and economic system together in straight theory, but it never works out how you want it to. It always ends up moving toward a more complementary system.

    Ever hear of systems theory? everything works towards an equilibrium. With political and economic systems, there is always a favored pairing.

  2. Nope. I did get the point.

    You can have a dictatorship that is either socialistic or not. A republic that is also socialistic or not.

    An Oligarchy that is libertarian. A Monarchy that is communitarian, etc, etc, etc.

  3. Yeah, so what, Matteo?

    Saddam wasn’t a Socialist. The Ba’ath Party was not Socialist. Pay attention!

  4. Maybe you didn’t get the point. All Political systems feature a complimentary economic system, some systems like an Oligarchy (or what I call Modern Feudalism) have co-dependent economic and political systems.

  5. Socialism is an economic system. You can have any form of government on top of that.

    But what Socialism does is screw up so bad that said government becomes more and more tyranical as a response. Even “Democratic” ones.

  6. In the general case, it’s probably illegal. But for security-sensitive jobs it’s probably not illegal to discriminate by security risk. Where someone’s friends, relatives, and contacts live could be part of security screening.

  7. I am not familiar with US employment law, but I would be very surprised if it was not illegal to discriminate against job applicants on the basis of where their cousin lives.

  8. Same can be said for about any government system. Oligarchy covers their tracks the best. Dictatorships and fascism produce genocide frequently. Democratic Socialist states (think crazy SJW states in Western Europe) actually have the best Human Rights tract records, while anytime a few individuals are given total command, it typically ends in genocide. There has never, ever been a pure communist or socialist state, it’s impossible. It always ends in an oligarchy or dictatorship. Most of the time they cling to a form of modified feudalism, then claim it’s socialistic or communist as a propaganda endeavor.

  9. That makes me wonder how careful the people doing the pre-employment screening are at SpaceX. Hopefully they are able to catch anyone with relatives in China or the like.

  10. China will be left in the dust by SpaceX and Blue Origin, just like NASA is being left in the dust.

  11. Doesn’t look like they’re planning on taking advantage of a full-diameter 2nd/3rd stage. One rationale for SLS was the increased +size+ over F9H, and SpaceX SHS if full diameter as well, indicating payloads of similar size.

    Looks like a ‘moonshot’ rocket to me, not something designed to challenge SpaceX. Especially since there appears to be no attempt to make any part of it reusable.

  12. Obsolete before it’s even off the drawing board, impressive, even ESA is better than this.

    I’m willing to bet good money that Chinese new space companies will build something before this thing is finished, after getting some crucial “inspiration” from SpaceX.

  13. Looks like no-reuse (not a suprise). China may be able to build these 140 T to LEO rockets that cost $280M ($2M/1000kg = $2000/kg) per mission (1/4 of SLS projection for a smaller mass) and put some serious mass in LEO, GEO, LTO. It is a much different (and lower risk) approach than SpaceX is trying … but SpaceX is pushing for $10/kg to LEO … through 100x reuse … which is the real game changer.

    Otherwise … I wish the Chinese luck, we could use competition to get the US Gov’t thinking about SHSS payloads right now.

  14. By then SpaceX will have fully developed the Starship with the vacuum optimized engines giving it better capability. By 2030, unless BO does something significant, SpaceX will have already cornered the market. China will be a distant 2nd or 3rd, even with heavy subsidization.

  15. Is the need commercial or military? I shudder to think what the chinese government would do with all that mass in space..

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