China is launching a reusable space plane in2020

There is not a lot of details, but China came out today to state they re going to b launching a reusable space plane in 2020. It sounds like it is to be optionally manned and can either ferry people or cargo.

China is the opposite of thee Russians: they almost never announce something unless they are sure it will happen. Watch the skies in 2020, folks.

news.xinhuanet.com...

They have a whole bunch of cool stuff coming, I like how quick they work. I'm finding it pretty hard to keep up to date with all their projects, they just move too fast and all the sites are in Chinese...

a reply to: anzha

ill hold my praise till i see it for real, there first space walk(i made a post on this) was suspect at best

a reply to: anzha

some more details:

arstechnica.com...

"Based on various reports, the spacecraft would take off from a runway and then, higher in the atmosphere, shift to ramjet propulsion before finally using rocket motors to exit Earth's atmosphere and move into orbit around the planet."

I start believing in a chinese SSTO solution when i see it. TSTO concept utilizing a TBCC / rocket booster combo is certainly not impossible but not by 2020. Their engine tech isnt that good to say the least. They could try for turboramjet / rocket booster combination but getting into orbit with any sort of payload sounds dubious at best.

a reply to: anzha I will be very happy to see this happen. After that then we have a real space race!

a reply to: anzha to see a race for H3 then I can die happy.

So basically, they will be flying our tech they have stolen or been given by traitors that is at least 20 or 30 years old and calling it revolutionary. Meanwhile, we have tech flying 30 years ahead of the recently announced B-21. Sounds about right.

a reply to: SonofaSkunk

Chinese armed X15s!

I for one welcome our chinese overlords....

Eh, this feels more like a pipe dream unless they've stolen SABRE engines and have been testing them in secret (which I doubt).

a reply to: SonofaSkunk

Estimated that within ten years US military technology will start to ebb behind Chinese...

a reply to: purplemer

Sort of. It's a lot more complicated than that.

Is the Chinese spaceplane "just" a HOTOL TSTO X-37B equivalent?

a reply to: anzha
A vehicle like the X-37 wouldnt be capable of reaching orbit when launchend from a carrier aircraft. This design as shown probably wouldnt either. You need alot of propellant for that, especially if you want to achieve actual LEO and Rendezvous with a space station. This cuts into your payload. you either need to settle for a comparatively small vehicle, less than LEO or something so big the HOTOL solution wont work.
But lets hope they build something and hype it up to no end. This way we might finally see some things come on out of the black.

a reply to: anzha

two stage to orbit, jeez china how many decades are you behind?

very cool that this stuff is becoming more mainstream.

a reply to: penroc3

warisboring.com...

originally posted by: Forensick
I for one welcome our chinese overlords....

They won't welcome you. For the first time since the Hapsburg empire in the 1500's the world will be dominated by a tyranny untouched by the ideas of the Enlightenment.

a reply to: mbkennel





gbtimes.com...

I am sure the aircraft on the bottom with actually get all the excitement around here, but...

Not to be a troll, but there sure was a lot of dismissiveness by the experts on here in some of the fast mover threads and “WTF did I see refueling” thread when TSTOs were discussed AKA the XB-70, XB-176, SR-75, etc.

Funny there are two stories active today on ATS - the Cosmic Girl thread and this. I may have been fairly average in calculus, but if a 747 can serve as an effective first stage for a TSTO, then how much better (more energy) would a large airframe able to travel at Mach 2-4 at 80-90K feet be for a platform?

I’m betting the US had such a bird/system in the early 90s to at least early 2000s. Seems like the Chinese engineers think TSTO with a fast mothership is a pretty good idea too. Guess they don’t read ATS though.