HELSINKI – China’s top space contractor has conducted a successful static fire test of a first rocket stage designed to take astronauts to the moon.
A Long March 10 first-stage test article was fired in Beijing’s Fengtai district on Friday, June 14. The stage started normally, worked steadily and concluded on time, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) said via its WeChat channel.
The test was conducted by Institute 101 of the Sixth Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s top aerospace contractor.
The successful test is a step toward China’s goal of putting astronauts on the moon before 2030. NASA currently aims to land humans on the moon again with Artemis III no earlier than 2026.
In the test article, three YF-100K kerosene liquid oxygen engines were installed over a diameter of 5.0 meters. The entire first stage of Long March 10 will be powered by seven such engines. The middle stage of the rocket has two similar stages attached to it.
The number of engines may have been limited to three due to test bench capacity. However, the static fire was considered a complete success, with the three engines firing simultaneously.
“The test is basically a comprehensive verification of our first phase,” Xu Hongping, an engineer at CASC, told CCTV. “It was a complete success and laid a solid foundation for our subsequent research and development and the realization of our full human lunar exploration program,”
The test also verified the use of regular baffles, which allowed the rocket to become lighter, the propellant filling process, the electrostatic servo mechanism and other aspects of the rocket.
A second test in the first phase of the power system will be conducted again in the near future to further verify other working conditions, China’s space agency CMSEO said, according to a subsequent development plan for the Long March 10.
The Long March 10 will consist of three stages with a total length of 92.5 meters. The first phase will use three cores. It will have a mass of 2,189 tons at take-off and a take-off force of about 2,678 tons. It is designed to carry as much as 27 tons to Earth-moon orbit.
Two long launches on March 10 will be used to take astronauts to the moon and back. One will launch the Mengzhou spacecraft and another the Lanyue lunar lander. These will meet in orbit around the moon. Two astronauts descend to the surface in the lander. They will spend six hours on the lunar surface before rejoining their colleague in lunar orbit and returning to Earth.
“The development of new-generation manned rockets can significantly increase our country’s ability to go into space and help the Chinese land on the moon. In addition, some of the technological breakthroughs can boost the development of our entire aerospace industry and provide a significant boost to the country’s advanced manufacturing sector,” said Xu.
A Long 10 March variant in low Earth orbit will be used to send crew and cargo to the Tiangong Space Station. The variant will be 67 meters long and has a reusable first stage. At launch it will have a mass of 740 tons, generating approximately 892 tons of thrust. The capacity for LEO must be no less than 14 tons.
Xu said the reusable design of the first phase has been verified at scale. The first stage will use retropropulsion and be captured by tight wires, instead of deploying landing legs.
The YF-100K variable-thrust engines are improved versions of the YF-100 engines that power China’s new generation of kerosene rockets that entered service just under a decade ago.
New launch facilities for the Long March 10 are already being built at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island.
The manned moon landing mission is part of China’s broader plans to establish a robotic and eventually inhabited moon base. The initiative is known as the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
China selected a new batch of astronauts last week and will begin training for future moon missions.
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