China’s latest space plans are moving ahead at full speed ...jamesoberg.com/oberg_SEP2013.pdf · China’s latest space plans are moving ahead at full speed, with new space vehicles,

China’s latest space plans are moving ahead at full speed,

with new space vehicles, launch facilities, and manufacturing

sites already taking shape. Success, however, will require that

these complex elements come together simultaneously and

work as intended, a daunting challenge. But if assets such as

a new family of heavy-lift boosters perform as promised,

they will greatly increase China’s future space capabilities.

What this may imply about the country’s long-term national

goals is an unanswered question.

38 AEROSPACE AMERICA/SEPTEMBER 2013 Copyright ©2013 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

China space 2.0

The next LEAPforward

OBERGlayout0913_Layout 1 8/19/13 1:26 PM Page 2

by James ObergContributing writer

The fairing for the LM-5is being developed withan eye to the future.

AEROSPACE AMERICA/SEPTEMBER 2013 39

this regard. They offer so many options thatthere appear to be virtually no constraintson any combination of new space goals.

EnginesThe ‘jewel in the space crown’ of thesenew capabilities is the Long March 5 (LMor CZ-5) booster, an intermediate-classrocket (think Saturn 1B, or Proton, or Ari-ane 5) with an initial flight rate of up to 10-12 per year, and downstream capability tomore than double that.

For the past 20 years, most Chinesespacecraft have been launched on varia-tions of the Long March 2, 3, and 4 boost-ers. These rockets are based on the hyper-golic-fueled military ICBM Dong Feng 5,whose two YF-21 engines had a thrust perengine of 284 tons. This Long March familywith its paired core engines (YF-21B) hasplaced up to 9.5 tons in LEO with strap-onsor, with upper stages, carried 3-5 tons toGEO transfer orbit.

The Chinese space program, afteran impressive two-decade pro-gression through modest, year-by-year improvements, now facesperhaps the most challenging

‘great leap’ in its history. If the effort suc-ceeds, it will enable far more ambitiousspace activities in the coming decade andbeyond.

Years-long construction, development,and testing are on the verge of simultane-ously activating a new spacecraft andbooster production facility, a new family ofboosters, and a new, more capable launchsite. The era of ‘China space 2.0’ is about tobegin, and Western observers are both im-pressed by the undertaking and uncertainabout its national goals.

A primary principle of technological in-telligence analysis is that observed capabil-ities under development reflect national in-tentions and goals. But China’s imminentnew space capabilities are ambiguous in


40 AEROSPACE AMERICA/SEPTEMBER 2013

Although stretched central cores and addedstrap-ons allowed incremental enhance-ment of performance, a design ceiling hadbeen reached, literally: Rockets bigger thanabout 3.35 m in diameter and 14 m longdid not fit through the railroad tunnels.

To break this impasse, space plannersbegan an across-the-board infrastructureupgrade. This involved construction of en-tirely new booster and spacecraft fabrica-tion and test facilities with seagoing shipaccess, along with a coastal launch site atthe other end of the water route. For rangesafety as well as launch dynamics consider-ations, the site chosen was on Hainan Is-land, near 19 deg N.

As noted in a ‘space white paper’ inlate 2011, the new booster family was des-ignated Long March 5, 6, and 7. The papers,released by Beijing at five-to-six-year inter-vals, have proved to be reliable indicatorsof broad national space goals, althoughthey are not complete (no military applica-tions are mentioned). First flights wereplanned for late 2014, a date that has nowbegun slipping.

One indicator of the care that develop-ers were taking in these fundamentally newdesign efforts was a February 20, 2012, arti-cle on digital prototyping of the booster.According to the article, published on theChina Aerospace Science and Technology(CASC) website, this is the first time in thehistory of Chinese rockets that an entirerocket model has been digitally engineered.The most difficult aspect of the effort wasthat in the absence of past experience, all-new computing methods and design con-cepts were needed.

Unlike its predecessors, the LM 5 pro-gram uses 3D design methods. Tests arenow conducted through simulation soft-ware, which increases reliability and savesgreat amounts of manpower, material, andmoney. The CASC article explained thatdigital model testing is done prior to testingon a physical model. Then, after the digitaland physical models are compared for anydiffering results, the digital model’s param-eters are further refined.

The first production YF-100 engineshad completed acceptance testing by June14, 2012. In a statement released by theXinhua News Agency, the State Administra-tion of Science, Technology and Industryfor National Defence reported:

“The 120-tonne liquid oxygen/kero-sene high-pressure staged combustion cycleengine will provide an effective guarantee

Soon after 2000, in a decision appar-ently made in several stages, the govern-ment approved the development of twomajor new engines that reflect more ambi-tious goals. They are the YF-100, a newkerosene-LO2 rocket engine rated at 120tons thrust (twice the thrust of the previousstrap-on stage engine), and YF-77, an LH2/LO2 core engine with a thrust of 50 tons.

A new family of smaller upper-stageengines, both hypergolic and cryogenic, wasto be created as well.

As engine development proceeded, de-sign work on the booster family that woulduse these engines proceeded in parallel.Three tank diameters were envisaged: a2.35-m tank with a single YF-100 engine, a3.35-m tank with two YF-100s, and a 5-mtank with two YF-77s.

The design of the biggest version, theLM 5, specifies a length of 60 m, with fourengines. For LEO missions, the central 5-mcore is assisted early on by four 3.35-m liq-uid strap-ons, and goes all the way into or-bit. The payload weight would increasetwo-and-a-half to three times over that ofcurrent boosters—up to 25 tons in LEO.

The LM 7 variant, which is lookingmore and more likely to be the first of thenew family to actually fly, will use a 3.35-mcore with 2.35-m strap-ons plus an upperstage. It is also considered likely to becomethe replacement for most LM 2 variants overthe next 10 years.

Breakthroughs in logistics and designThe new booster family was not the onlyneeded breakthrough. Up until then, Chi-nese spacelift was constrained by limitedthrust, but also by a very down-to-Earthpractical limitation: the logistics of trans-porting booster components from their fac-tory to launch sites that were all far inland.

The Long March (or CZ) series was robust evenbefore the advent of the LM 5, 6, and 7.



for the country’s manned space and lunarprobe missions. This high-performance en-gine is nontoxic, pollution-free and reliable.

“It is the first kind of high-pressurestaged combustion cycle engine for whichChina has proprietary intellectual propertyrights,” the statement continued. “It alsomakes China the second country in theworld, after Russia, to grasp the core tech-nologies for a liquid oxygen/kerosenehigh-pressure staged combustion cyclerocket engine.”

Lai Daichu, the test commander, toldnewsmen that the tests were designed tosee how the engine would respond to rota-tional speeds of nearly 20,000 rpm andtemperatures of 3,000 C for 200 sec. “Thesuccessful tests confirm the reliability ofChina’s LOX/kerosene engine,” he said.

A few weeks later, Luan Xiting, identi-fied as deputy director of the Academy ofAerospace Propulsion Technology underCASC, elaborated on the testing process:“Adequate tests are essential to expose itsweaknesses and discover its problems, sowe can come up with right solutions,” hetold a Beijing television station. “For some60 engines, we have tested over 120 timesand trial-run more than 30,000 seconds.”He added that over the 12-year develop-ment period, China developed more than50 new materials and achieved more than80 key technology breakthroughs.

“The building of a space station re-quires carrier rockets with greater thrust, aseach capsule of the station will weigh about20 tonnes,” Jing Muchun, chief engineer forthe carrier rocket system of China’s mannedspace program, told Xinhua on September29, 2011.”We have been preparing for thelaunch of the space station, slated for2020.” Jing’s deputy, Song Zhengyu, toldXinhua that the new generation of carrierrockets, using digital flight control systemsand nontoxic, nonpolluting propellants,would take about seven years (2014-2021)to phase in. During that period existingLong March 2, 3, and 4 series would be re-placed sequentially.

While LM 5 was the heavy lifter, thesmaller LM 6 and LM 7 would have specialmissions. LM 6 is to be a new type of quick-response launch vehicle, capable of placingnot less than 1 tonne of payload into a Sun-synchronous orbit at a height of 700 km.The LM 7 will be able to place 13.5 tonnesin low-inclination LEO (it is expected to behuman rated for Shenzhou spacecraft), and5.5 tonnes of payload into a Sun-synchro-nous orbit at a height of 700 km, accordingto the white paper.

Hu Haifeng, a designer at CASC, toldXinhua that Long March 5 will help Chinareturn to the forefront of launch vehicletechnology. China’s vehicles have “a fairlygood record for reliability,” he was quoted

The LM-5 first stage hydrogen tank is part of a breakthrough in Chinese rocket design.



Chen Lan, a Chinese citizen who runs arespected independent commentary elec-tronic magazine and a website on Chinesespace activities (http://www.go-taikonauts.com), agrees:

“It’s undoubtedly a big leap,” he toldAerospace America by email. “Long March5 has a lot of breakthroughs: new designphilosophy, new engines, including thestaged combustion kerosene/LOX engine,new materials and FSW [friction stir weld-ing], new control system including use ofthe fiber channel bus, as well as all-digitaldesign. In short, it’s a brand new rocket,and much more advanced than the previ-ous launchers.

“There are indeed challenges,” he said.“For example, the YF-100 engine. It tookChina nearly 20 years to learn [from the pur-chased RD-120], develop, and mature it.Both the YF-100 and the YF-77 engines metserious problems. Slow engine develop-ment is one of reasons of the many-year de-lay of the project approval.” But he ex-pressed confidence: “Up to today, it seemsthat all critical issues have been solved.”

Launch siteChinese officials have been talking aboutthe advantages of a southern coastal launchsite since 1999. A small sounding rocketbase had been established in southeasternHainan Island in the 1980s, and with thedecision to proceed with the LM 5, devel-opment of the site was approved. A formalgroundbreaking ceremony for the Wen-chang Satellite Launch Center took place onSeptember 14, 2009, about a year after con-struction began.

Managing the project is the administra-tion of the Xichang launch site in Sichuan.Previously the southernmost inland site, itspecialized in GEO missions. Initially it wasexpected that this site would include padsfor the current Chinese launcher families.But in January, comments by Fan Yiminfrom the Engineering Construction Com-mand Dept. cast doubt on this. “As China’sfourth space launch site, [Hainan] will notduplicate the existing space launch sites,”he told a newspaper, “but make a break-through in many key technologies.” Xi-chang and the other sites, using older rock-ets, are to stay in operation through 2020.

Compared with current launch facili-ties, Hainan has unique advantages, Fancontinued. Its low latitude (19 deg N) givesa 7% performance boost over Xichang. Thenew site will have a high launch capability

as saying. “However, they lag behind otherleading countries’ vehicles in terms of pay-load and thrust capability because theywere built based on early 1990s plans. Nowwe need vehicles with a greater capabilityto send more payloads into space.

“The U.S. and Russia are also develop-ing launch vehicles with the highest impe-tus capability in the world, and it is still un-known which country will be the first tosucceed,” Hu added.

Daunting challengesHu’s candor was refreshing, because thetechnological challenges are widely consid-ered the most significant since the begin-ning of Chinese spaceflight in the 1970s.

Morris Jones, a noted Australian ob-server of China’s space activities, told Aero-space America by email, “Previous LongMarch rockets have been augmented withboosters and improved upper stages, butthis is the first time that a system has beenmodular from its conception. China is alsointroducing more powerful engines withcryogenic propellants. New engines areusually the greatest technical challenge in anew rocket.”

Jones added, “Although the variousstages and boosters are designed to worktogether, a system is more than the sum ofits parts. It’s possible that some mechanical,vibrational, or thermal issues will onlymake themselves visible when certain com-binations are actually flown.”

A satellite photo shows theadvantages of a southerncoastal launch site.



and allows the transport of rockets with di-ameters of 5 m without using railways andtunnels. The rocket overflight area and de-bris impact area will be very safe, posingno threat to ground personnel or buildings.The launch site also will be open to thepublic and serve as a space education base.

The Xichang official’s interest in safetyfor people on the ground may have grownout of personal experience. As detailed inAir & Space magazine (http://www.air-spacemag.com/history-of-flight/Disaster-at-Xichang-187496561.html?c= y&page=1), along-rumored launch disaster at Xichang 20years ago killed more than 100 peoplewhen the GEO-bound foreign communica-tions satellite’s booster swerved suddenlyon liftoff and crashed into a nearby village.

The most bizarre aspect of the newlaunch site is the construction of a 1,000-acre theme park next door. Supposedly, thepark will employ many of the 6,000 inhabi-tants evicted from the launch zone. In ad-dition to space-themed roller coasters, itwill offer tram rides past the actual launchpads, between launch campaigns.

Satellite imagery of the launch basewas difficult to come by for several years,but the location has now been spotted, re-portedly at 19.668 N 111.013 E. The firstoverhead view was published in ChenLan’s magazine, and other commercial im-aging services have produced usable views.But port facilities for receiving booster andspacecraft components remain undefined.Some sources believe docks were beingbuilt at the launch site (imagery is unclear),while others report that existing facilities atthe West Qinglan Seaport will be used, fol-lowed by overland road transport.

To transport the large booster segmentsand payloads (and probably large prefabri-cated launch hardware) two seagoing cargoships were built at Shanghai Jiangnan Ship-yard on Changxing Island. Yuanwang 21was launched on November 29, 2012, andan identical Yuanwang 22 on January 24 ofthis year. According to commemorativefirst-day covers, the ships are 130 m longwith displacement of 9,080 tons.

Tianjin industrial facilityWith a new coastal launch facility for largerboosters and spacecraft, China also neededa new coastal site for fabricating them.Through a selection process that has neverbeen described, officials settled on the cityof Tianjin (http://www.tj.gov.cn/english/),more familiar to Westerners under its old

spelling of Tientsin. It is China’s fourth-largest city, and the main port for Beijing,on the Yellow Sea.

Construction of the complex was an-nounced in 2007, but little news—and noneon the actual location—came out subse-quently. Even without official information,overhead satellite views are now available.

Then, in April 2011, inauguration of the‘China Space Environment Reliability Tian-jin Experiment and Test Center’ was an-nounced. Tao Gang, general manager ofTianjin Aerospace Long March Rocket Man-ufacturing, revealed that the fabricationcenter’s first-phase construction was “ini-tially completed,” and that production ofkey components for the booster hadreached industrialized production capabil-ity. The general assembly workshop wasalso supposed to come into use during thefirst half of 2011.

The Wenchang launch site willbe open to the public and serveas a space education base.

Cargo ships were built at Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard on Changxing Island to transport boostersegments and payloads to Hainan Island.



Then in January of this year, the sec-ond major facility was described, fourmonths after its televised cornerstone-lay-ing ceremony. This 100,000-m2 payloadfabrication center is to have the capacity todeliver six to eight oversized payloads ayear. According to an official announce-ment, these will include space station sec-tions, large communications satellites, largeremote sensing satellites, large unfoldingprecision structures, and other unspecifiedobjects.

Construction was due to be completedin August. A year later, after outfitting of theinterior, spacecraft fabrication will begin.

QQQ

Early press descriptions of Long March 5missions appear to be a wish list of all pos-sible space projects. Jiang Jie, Long March3A chief engineer, told China News Servicein March 2012: “The new generation willfeature heightened capacity, high reliability,robust adaptability, and clean energy use,shouldering the launches of near-Earth or-bit satellites, geostationary transfer orbitsatellites, satellites in Sun-synchronous or-bit, space stations, and lunar probes.”

Other press reports mentioned largeEarth observation satellites, which someWestern experts interpret as military recon-naissance craft. The main payload will bemodules for the Mir-class manned spacestation planned for after 2020.

The LM-5 could theoretically supporthuman missions beyond LEO, and withmultiple launches would enable a Shen-zhou/Tiangong-class months-long expedi-tion to and beyond cislunar space. OneNASA study recently portrayed a human lu-nar landing mission based on a large num-ber of separately launched payloads. NoChinese media discussion of such optionshas been detected, but the significance ofthat absence is obscure.

All of these dreams depend on a criti-cally large array of first-ever engineeringbreakthroughs, to be orchestrated in unison.Even if the LM 7 is the first (and easier) newfamily member to fly, the challenge of get-ting the LM 5 into service remains the great-est space leap China has ever attempted.The Chinese are reaching for an impressivenew level of spaceflight capabilities. Moredelays (now reportedly into ‘early 2015’ forthe LM 5), and even major flight anomalies,would not be surprising. Nor would they bea reason to question the ultimate success ofthese ambitious efforts.

Ma Xingrui, general manager of CASC,which designs and manufactures the LongMarch rocket series and Shenzhou mannedspacecraft, described the facility to Xinhuain September 2011. Called the Tianjin Aero-space Industry Base, it covers an area of313.33 hectares and cost over 6 billion yuan($938 million), according to CASC. It in-cludes a 220,000-m2 assembly building forthe launch vehicles, space stations, and“special equipment” (presumably otherlarge satellites).

The facility, says Ma, is designed tomeet China’s growing demand for spacetechnology R&D over the next 30-50 years.Integrating the fabrication steps will enablethe base to produce an entire spectrum ofrockets of different sizes and types for thenation’s Moon probe project, space station,and other efforts. Along with support fordesign, production, assembly, and testingof new rockets, it provides high-end serv-ices such as aerospace software.

Phase One of the construction plan wascompleted in February 2012. The facilityhad been equipped with all the operationalcapabilities for the processing of modules,for general assembly, and for testing ofhigh-thrust vehicles. By March 2012, LiangXiaohong, deputy head of the China Acad-emy of Launch Vehicle Technology, wasable to announce that development of thefirst hydrogen tank for the LM 5 had beencompleted. He added that production ofthe rocket’s key parts—the 5-m-diam. fairingstructure and other major fuel tanks—wouldbe completed by the end of 2012.

A static load test facility was one of the structures built for the Tianjin test center.


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China’s latest space plans are moving ahead at full speed ...jamesoberg.com/oberg_SEP2013.pdf · China’s latest space plans are moving ahead at full speed, with new space vehicles,