Elon Musk has been warned: his Chinese competitors have no plans to slow down.
On Wednesday, December 14, China witnessed the grand debut of a revolutionary device; the Landspace company has launched Zhuque-2, a space launcher powered by methane – a fuel of the future that the giants of the sector, starting with SpaceX, are also seeking to domesticate. This is the first in history that such a machine has taken off… but the experience unfortunately came to an end.
According to the report of specialized journalist Andrew Jones for SpaceNews , Zhuque-2 did not arrive at the end of its mission. During the second phase of the flight, after the separation of the first stage, the second set of engines seems to have encountered a major malfunction.
Based on the information available at this time, the issue was with Vernier motors. These are small complementary thrusters located on either side of the main engines. Unlike the latter, the thrust they deliver is not used to tear the vehicle from the clutches of gravity; it is essentially used to correct the trajectory during the ascent.
A real success hidden by the failure to put it into orbit
The entire vehicle therefore began to deviate from its trajectory. It was unable to build up enough speed to reach orbit. No image of this sequence seems to have filtered, but according to witnesses, it ended up falling towards the surface and therefore probably crashed. According to Andrew Jones, a journalist specializing in the Chinese space program, the payload consisting of a few satellites was lost.
Despite this failure, Chinese engineers still have reason to be optimistic. Indeed, it looks like the main engines worked pretty much as expected — and that may be the most important piece of information in this case. Because as mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is not a rocket engine like the others.
Their particularity is that they are powered by a mixture of methane and liquid oxygen – we then speak of a methox engine. This is a considerable difference compared to traditional thrusters. As a general rule, the latter use one of the fuels based on kerosene (known as kerolox ). This is particularly the case with the Merlin engines found on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launchers.
From kerosene to methane
However, methane-based fuels have enormous advantages over fuels of the kerolox type. First, it is less dense and offers a much higher specific impulse (Isp). Very vulgarly, it is a unit of magnitude which makes it possible to measure the efficiency of these engines; the higher it is, the less fuel must be mixed with the oxidizer (oxygen) to develop an equivalent thrust.
Concretely, this means that a rocket built around a methalox engine will be significantly smaller for the same payload . However, the majority of the mass of a launcher is precisely reserved for the storage of these propellants. With higher Isp fuel, operators could afford to carry heavier payloads . By extension, it would therefore be possible to send more sophisticated machines into space, or to bring much more material there in a single launch.
The other considerable advantage of methalox engines compared to their kerolox equivalents is that methane is abundant and very inexpensive . In addition, its combustion is perfectly clean , in the sense that it does not leave carbon residues on the walls of the engine. There is therefore no need for deep cleaning after each flight. A huge advantage for the day-to-day logistics of operations.
Aerospace is changing paradigm
Reading these advantages, it is easy to understand why all the industry giants are currently working on methalox type vehicles. We can mention New Glenn from Blue Origin, Neutron from Rocket Lab, Vulcan from ULA, but also and above all… the Starship from SpaceX.
The future spearhead of Elon Musk’s troops, which is already making all the competition shiver (see our article here ) even though it has not even had its first flight yet, will indeed be equipped with the famous Raptor V2 metallox engines.
Entangled in the “disaster” of the Raptor engines, SpaceX risks bankruptcy
SpaceX was among the first to bet on this technology, and has been working on it for years. This engine has long been the firm’s top priority. The development was long, excessively difficult and very expensive, to the point of bringing the giant of the sector close to bankruptcy (see our article above). But in recent months, Musk has multiplied the encouraging signals; the Raptor V2 now seems ready, and the Starship is finally approaching the starting blocks.
SpaceX on the verge of being capped at the post
Many observers therefore believed that SpaceX would become the first company to send a craft into orbit thanks to a methalox engine – a feat that has never been achieved until now. But that was without counting on the dazzling progress of Chinese aerospace; without the failure of this small Vernier engine, the Middle Kingdom would most likely have grilled the courtesy of the American champion.
Zhuque-2 remains an immensely less advanced launcher than the future Starship. Overall, it’s still too early to say that Landspace has beaten or surpassed SpaceX on this technology. But this is an all but negligible warning shot. As it stands, the firm can still be proud of having launched the very first operational methalox vehicle. And this is already a fairly substantial step forward, contrary to what the American media behind their national champion seem to suggest.
It will therefore be quite fascinating to observe the next stages of this race. Will the Starship be the first vehicle in this category to reach orbit? Or will it be preceded by a young Chinese shoot? The bets are open. In any case, what is certain is that this progress will not please the American contingent. Uncle Sam already takes a very dim view of China’s space successes (see our article), and its rise to power in this area will certainly not ease the tensions between these two countries embarked on a kind of neo- cold War.
Source : Journal du Geek
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