Chinese space shuttle?

[Merlin66]

Interesting??
https://www.sciencealert.com/china-lands-mysterious-reusable-spacecraft-after-two-days-in-space

[glend]

Well the Russian's developed one, shortly after the US Shuttle appeared. Not really surprising from the world's best copiers. Rumour has it they have a team watching the SpaceX private sector Utube cameras at Boca Chica (like Labpadre's), which are pretty good at capturing all aspects of the Starship development. Likely they have their spies monitoring the Chat Line that runs in conjunction with the video feeds as well, as there is a surprising amount of technical info that gets discussed.

[sharpiel]

The Russian shuttle came to the exhibition center in Sydney late 1990's/early 2000's...I can't remember exactly the year. I walked all through it. Quite amazing. The exhibit claimed it was a self contained launch and return vehicle. I can't ever remember hearing of any actual flights tho. The exhibit also claimed those canny Russians found the plans on the early internet and copied them adding their own improvements...

As to the veracity of anything...I can only verify the existence of the shuttle. It was huge and completely open for inspection. Looked just like the US ones.

[TrevorW]

:rofl:The Americans are still using one secretly

[gary]

Rather than being analogous to the Space Shuttle, it looks more like the
Boeing X-37, the operations of which are shrouded in secrecy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

[LewisM]

There are no pictures of it, and even the leading picture of a rocket launch is generic, so we don't even know if it is X-37 or even Shuttle-like at all. Pure speculation by everyone.

[Zuts]

I am sure the yanks have a photo of it sitting on it's launch pad. Monitored it's launch and so also know it's lift capabilities.

[gary]

The South China Morning Post quoted a Chinese military official :-



Jonathan McDowell concluded his analysis of the mysterious Chinese space mission by writing that all publicly available data are “consistent with an experimental X-37-style spaceplane.” However, he noted that a “reusable” spacecraft “doesn’t necessarily mean winged,” and added China could have tested a reusable capsule similar to SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

McDowell said, “We should be clear about what is known and what is a guess.”

[Peter Ward]

The Soviet Buran was a piece of rubbish.

The Soviets failed to develop the environmental systems that were essential to having a crew operate in orbit for prolonged periods. The US shuttle program was simply leagues ahead of the Shuttleski which was destroyed shortly after its unremarkable flight.

As to what China may or may not have...hard to say. But it must be said they are prepared to spend seriously big $ to further national interests and status.

[LewisM]

Maybe, maybe not:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a9763/did-the-soviets-actually-build-a-better-space-shuttle-16176311/


http://www.aerospacengineering.net/buran-space-shuttle-vs-sts-comparison/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme#Flight_crew_prepara tion

The crew environmental systems were not completed because the entire programme was shelved after the first unmanned flight (that required no environmental system). Also, if you read a little on the first and only flight, I wouldn't call it unremarkable - actually achieved more than the STS first flight.

Additionally, the Buran could be flown as a regular aircraft from take off to landing for crew training (employing turbofan engines) and famiiarisation, whereas the STS could not and needed a converted Gulfstream to train crew.

It is also interesting that the US reverse engineered the Energia rocket system (wanting to use it on another Shuttle system), and also have essentially directly copied the BOR-4 lifting body (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-105), both as the HL-20, and the Dream Chaser (https://www.sncorp.com/what-we-do/dream-chaser-space-vehicle/). And we need also to remember the US reliance on Russian rocket engines for quite some time now in many of their launch systems. Even Elon Musk praises the Russian engines and more so the Soyuz system as a whole.

Cuts both ways, but we really should stop believing so much of the incorrect propaganda and hype. I mean, calling an aircraft rubbish because of an incomplete environmental system on an unmanned testbed is like praising Boeing's creations - the seriously flawed B787 (see the latest news...) and the "wonderful" 737MAX...:rofl:

[Peter Ward]

You really want to go toe to toe with me on this Lewis? :)

The X-20 Dyna-Soar program predates the BOR-4 by over a decade, and the HL-10 lifting body...which was a direct result of that program... preceded the MIG copy by a few years...
You might want to look at some of the names associated with the X-20. ;)

I see you failed to mention the striking similarity of the Buran air-frame which magically only appeared after the US Shuttle....which by the way
was indeed flight tested by the likes of John Young (he is worth a google) to validate the dynamic envelope.

Strapping a turbofan to an orbiter is frankly a really dumb idea.

You are managing rapidly decaying energy after de-orbit, not flying circuits.

The Gulfstreams that allowed Shuttle pilots to select reverse(!) while in flight was a far more efficient training solution.

As for Soviet airliners.... put me in a B787 any day.

Sure the 737-Max program is a crock...but I fail to see any connection between that and failed Soviet Shuttles.

As for the Chinese Shuttle... I suspect we live in interesting times.

[LewisM]

Never said the Buran was a Not a copy Peter, only tried to point out it is not considered “rubbish” by anyone but arm chair pundits. The Yanks certainly took it rather seriously, especially the launch system after it was amply shown the STS launch system was fatally flawed and fragile.

The Soviets figured out quickly the false economics of the Shuttle

[Peter Ward]

By failing to deliver a single payload or crew to orbit prior to its destruction and subsequent program cancellation, this tertiary qualified aviator with 4 decades heavy jet of experience still thinks thinks Buran was rubbish even if I am sitting in an armchair as I write, but, if you can point to a Buran orbital payload milestone I'll be happy to revise that opinion :)

The Shuttle was hardly fragile.

The issue was how to repeatedly handle the enormous energies the airframe had to withstand on launch and re-entry. Top of descent in an A380 typically starts at 140 odd nautical miles out at Mach .84. For a touchdown in Florida, the Shuttle starts TOD over the sea of Japan at about 300,000 feet doing Mach 16....absolutely friggin' awesome stuff IMHO....and they did it 135 times over a 30 year program. Sadly there were two airframe losses...which had nothing to do with fragility.
Costly? Sure. But we would not have the Hubble without it.
But Fragile? Who is being the armchair expert now? ;)

[cannon_gray]

Based on the known data on the carrying capacity of Changzheng-2F, we can assume its maximum weight - no more than 8.5 tons. Also known are the parameters of the orbit into which the reusable spacecraft was launched on Friday: almost circular, 340 kilometers high and with an inclination of 50.2 degrees. There are speculations that it was not just a capsule that can be reused like SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner, but a spaceplane shuttle. There is no evidence of this, but if something similar to the Soviet "Spiral" or the American Dream Chaser with the X-37B was developed in the Celestial Empire, this is really a fantastic breakthrough for Chinese astronautics.

[FlashDrive]

WOW ..... Mach 16, imagine the friction :atom:

[forrestwhite]

Will we ever see how Chinese spacecraft flies?