Chinese rocket company Linkspace launched a rocket. The rocket took off, flew to 300 m (1,000 ft) and then conducted a powered landing. This is
similar to what SpaceX did with its Grasshopper tests as part of the work up to building the reusable first stages for the Falcon9 rockets. Masten
Aerospace has flown to similar heights. As has Blue Origin.
However, the Linkspace rocket is a mere 65 cm in diameter (26 in), but a 26 ft in height. it weighs a total of 1.5 metric tons. That's much larger
than the Masten vehicles, but far, far smaller than the SpaceX or Blue Origin.
Linkspace is working their way through the control theory for the "sticked" landings and the smaller size of the rocket isn't a handicap here, but
a legit advantage. Less milk to cry over when it crashes, erm, spills.
The Chinese are just as serious about reusable rockets as the US is. Let's see how long until they've started using them on a large scale.
a reply to: Fallingdown
Elon Musk has made all the patents for Tesla free to use. He has also stated SpaceX doesn't have patents. Pretty much all of Elon Musk's companies
operate like this.
They didn’t file for a patents in order to keep the SpaceX rocket secret . If you file for a patent you have to describe it in enough detail
that China and others could work it out .
It would be like handing china a instruction manual .
China doesn’t give two #s about US patent law and if a patent was filed it would’ve made it easy for them .
Yes safer as a Corporate secret because the global cabal runs the patent offices....its another major arm of their infrastructure that needs
dismanteling.