Chinese pseudo-private company buys engines for its reusable rocket
The pseudo-private Chinese rocket company, Rocket Pi, has signed a deal with another pseudo-private Chinese company, Jiuzhou Yunjian, to build the engines the former will use in its proposed reusable Darwin-1 rocket.
I call these pseudo-private because — while they both have raised independent Chinese investment capital and are structured and appear to operate as private companies, they remain entirely under the supervision of the Chinese communist government, most especially its military wing. Nothing they do is done without that government’s permission, even if they are launching entirely private payloads.
Nonetheless, both companies are real, and have been proceeding aggressively towards the first launch of Darwin-1 in ’23. There is every reason to expect them to succeed.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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The pseudo-private Chinese rocket company, Rocket Pi, has signed a deal with another pseudo-private Chinese company, Jiuzhou Yunjian, to build the engines the former will use in its proposed reusable Darwin-1 rocket.
I call these pseudo-private because — while they both have raised independent Chinese investment capital and are structured and appear to operate as private companies, they remain entirely under the supervision of the Chinese communist government, most especially its military wing. Nothing they do is done without that government’s permission, even if they are launching entirely private payloads.
Nonetheless, both companies are real, and have been proceeding aggressively towards the first launch of Darwin-1 in ’23. There is every reason to expect them to succeed.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Is this the technical challenge to building a reusable booster? Having rocket engines that can fire, shut off and then fire again to safely land the booster?
Currently, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are the only boosters that have launched an actual payload into orbit and then safely landed, to be reused in a later flight?
Steve Richter asked: “Is this the technical challenge to building a reusable booster? Having rocket engines that can fire, shut off and then fire again to safely land the booster?”
Relightable rocket engines have been around for a long time. This is not the limiting factor. Major problems that engineers considered limiting were the stresses on the engines during reentry from the vacuume of space. An orbital booster has a horizontal velocity of around a mile per second, and must fall from above the Karman line, so it will have a large velocity as it reaches the denser parts of the atmosphere.
Reusing a first stage had seemed impractical for most rocket engineers, although there was an idea to redesign the Saturn V first stage with wings to return for a runway landing and later reuse. This would have been used for the Space Shuttle, and it would have protected the engines in a similar way as the Shuttle. Some engineers thought there was another possibility: propulsive reentry.
Some engineers with this second opinion went to work at SpaceX and applied a reentry burn that slows the Falcon booster stage to a more acceptable speed through the thicker atmosphere. Blue Origin’s booster did not have as much velocity to bleed off during reentry, so they don’t need the reetry burn, but I have noticed that the maximum speed of the New Shepard booster is similar to the speed that Falcon slows to during reentry.
By building reusable boosters, both Blue Origin and SpaceX have reduced the performance of their overall rocket systems, but the reduced costs of the launches have more than made up for the difference.