lost in melb.
04-17-2023, 01:47 PM
The biggest launch vehicle ever built is expected to take off from southern Texas on Monday
If successful, the project will have ripple effects in the Chinese space industry, according to an engineer in Beijing
The countdown has begun in earnest to the maiden flight of SpaceX’s Starship – an event being watched closely by specialists and the general public alike in China. At 120 metres (394 feet) tall, the stainless-steel Starship is the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built and is intended to become fully reusable, taking passengers and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon or Mars. It is expected to lift off from the US rocket company’s launch site in southern Texas at around 8pm Beijing time on Monday. An engineer working on a reusable rocket for a company in Beijing said that if successful, the launch would give the United States at least a 20-year edge in the rocket industry and boost China’s investment in the private space sector and reusable rockets.
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“I’m really impressed by the fact that both stages of Starship are reusable, which can dramatically reduce launch costs. In China, we are still working to fully master first-stage reusability,” the engineer said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. Powered by liquid oxygen and methane, Starship will use 33 Raptor engines for its first-stage booster and six for its upper-stage flight, with a take-off thrust that would “put its propulsion system to test”, the Beijing-based rocket engineer said.
“Starship has the most complex propulsion system in the world. When 33 engines are at work simultaneously, they release an enormous amount of energy and put the rocket materials and manufacturing techniques through an ordeal,” he said.
Astrophysicist Quentin Parker from Hong Kong University said his colleagues were very excited about the launch. “There’s a lot of anticipation. Everybody is hoping it’ll be a successful launch, as nothing like this has happened before,”said Parker, who leads the university’s Laboratory for Space Research. “Starship’s shiny look, gigantic size, heavy-lift capacity, and full reusability make it incredibly impressive for a private company – not national space agencies in the US, Europe, or China – to accomplish,” Parker said.
Amateur space fans in China are also impressed by the scale of the project. A rocket fan from Chongqing wrote on the social media platform Weibo that “it’s the first time for humans to launch such a huge rocket, and there are no previous lessons to learn from”. “Once Starship makes it, it will open up a new window for the future of human civilisation,” the Weibo user wrote.
...
https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3217345/china-watches-elon-musks-starship-readies-20-year-edge-reusable-rockets
If successful, the project will have ripple effects in the Chinese space industry, according to an engineer in Beijing
The countdown has begun in earnest to the maiden flight of SpaceX’s Starship – an event being watched closely by specialists and the general public alike in China. At 120 metres (394 feet) tall, the stainless-steel Starship is the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built and is intended to become fully reusable, taking passengers and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon or Mars. It is expected to lift off from the US rocket company’s launch site in southern Texas at around 8pm Beijing time on Monday. An engineer working on a reusable rocket for a company in Beijing said that if successful, the launch would give the United States at least a 20-year edge in the rocket industry and boost China’s investment in the private space sector and reusable rockets.
Advertisement
Advertisement
“I’m really impressed by the fact that both stages of Starship are reusable, which can dramatically reduce launch costs. In China, we are still working to fully master first-stage reusability,” the engineer said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. Powered by liquid oxygen and methane, Starship will use 33 Raptor engines for its first-stage booster and six for its upper-stage flight, with a take-off thrust that would “put its propulsion system to test”, the Beijing-based rocket engineer said.
“Starship has the most complex propulsion system in the world. When 33 engines are at work simultaneously, they release an enormous amount of energy and put the rocket materials and manufacturing techniques through an ordeal,” he said.
Astrophysicist Quentin Parker from Hong Kong University said his colleagues were very excited about the launch. “There’s a lot of anticipation. Everybody is hoping it’ll be a successful launch, as nothing like this has happened before,”said Parker, who leads the university’s Laboratory for Space Research. “Starship’s shiny look, gigantic size, heavy-lift capacity, and full reusability make it incredibly impressive for a private company – not national space agencies in the US, Europe, or China – to accomplish,” Parker said.
Amateur space fans in China are also impressed by the scale of the project. A rocket fan from Chongqing wrote on the social media platform Weibo that “it’s the first time for humans to launch such a huge rocket, and there are no previous lessons to learn from”. “Once Starship makes it, it will open up a new window for the future of human civilisation,” the Weibo user wrote.
...
https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3217345/china-watches-elon-musks-starship-readies-20-year-edge-reusable-rockets