Author Topic: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?  (Read 12757 times)

Offline averagespacejoe

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Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« on: 06/29/2014 11:37 pm »
I was looking back over the last few years 2010 (15) 2011 (19) 2012 (19) and 2013 (15) with the number of Chinese orbital launches either coming close or in some cases exceeding American orbital launch rates. This year as the first half of the year comes to a close the Chinese have only a single orbital launch on the books with even India, Europe and the Japanese surpassing them. Does anyone know what is going on?

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #1 on: 06/30/2014 12:06 am »
I was looking back over the last few years 2010 (15) 2011 (19) 2012 (19) and 2013 (15) with the number of Chinese orbital launches either coming close or in some cases exceeding American orbital launch rates. This year as the first half of the year comes to a close the Chinese have only a single orbital launch on the books with even India, Europe and the Japanese surpassing them. Does anyone know what is going on?
First, there was a CZ-4B failure late last year, which may have caused some delays.

Second, China has been putting up some new satellite constellations, so the peak launch rates may have passed for now.

Third, China usually performs the bulk of its launches late in the calendar year.  China's Chang Zheng had only performed three launches by this time last year, for example, but the type ended the year with 14 flights.

 - Ed kyle

Offline weedenbc

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #2 on: 06/30/2014 01:05 am »
This is not a meaningful metric to track anyways.

While China may have technically launched more per year than the US in recent years, China is still far below the all-time highest launch rates recorded by either the US or the Soviet Union. In the 1960s the US peaked at more than 80 launches per year and the Soviets consistently had 90-100 launches per year from the mid-1980s to the end of the 1990s.



Image taken from here:
http://planet4589.org/space/log/stats1.html

Orbital launch rate is a very poor metric for measuring anything meaningful. The reason the US launch rate dipped in the 1970s while the Soviet rate went higher is because the US was building much more sophisticated satellites that could stay on orbit longer. So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
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Offline edkyle99

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #3 on: 06/30/2014 03:17 am »
So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
Who is it that is launching U.S. astronauts into orbit now?

The point in recent years is the relative change.  Russia and China launch counts are trending up, they are launching people, and building new spaceports and launch vehicle families.  The U.S. and Europe are trending down, both depend on engines from the former USSR, and neither can launch people. 

 - Ed Kyle

Offline Lar

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #4 on: 06/30/2014 04:07 am »
I think the US are building a new spaceport.... it will be in Boca Chica, TX...
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #5 on: 06/30/2014 05:11 am »
I think the US are building a new spaceport.... it will be in Boca Chica, TX...

IMO Ed consider SpaceX to be a separate entity from the USG/ULA. Not too far off the mark in my opinion.

Offline weedenbc

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #6 on: 06/30/2014 12:41 pm »
So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
Who is it that is launching U.S. astronauts into orbit now?

The point in recent years is the relative change.  Russia and China launch counts are trending up, they are launching people, and building new spaceports and launch vehicle families.  The U.S. and Europe are trending down, both depend on engines from the former USSR, and neither can launch people. 

 - Ed Kyle

Russian launch counts are trending up from an all-time low and are still barely 1/5 of their all time high. Russia has had a series of launch failures and is building new rocket families because they haven't at all in the last few decades. Aside from a couple of communication satellites and a handful of ISR sats, their national security space presence has dwindled to much less than it used to be. They only have one functional warning satellite in orbit and GLONASS is a joke in the GNSS community.

China's launch counts are indeed rising, mainly because they are beginning to build out their national security space capabilities. They now have a respectable ISR constellation and are building out BeiDou. But this is all stuff the US did in the 1960s or 1970s and China still has a long ways to go.

Viewing the space world solely through the lens of number of space launches is a very myopic perspective.
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Offline baldusi

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #7 on: 06/30/2014 01:06 pm »
Try to keep a GLONASS, gonet and warning fleet with 2 yrs lifetime of satellites. You need about 20 launches just for that. And that's assuming multiple payloads per launch. Look at current GPS fleet replenishment, they are doing 2 launches/year only because they haven't invested on dual launch and want to modernize the fleet. With dual launch and current realized life of satellites 1 launch/year would be enough.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #8 on: 06/30/2014 01:14 pm »
So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
Who is it that is launching U.S. astronauts into orbit now?

The point in recent years is the relative change.  Russia and China launch counts are trending up, they are launching people, and building new spaceports and launch vehicle families.  The U.S. and Europe are trending down, both depend on engines from the former USSR, and neither can launch people. 

 - Ed Kyle

That's a very limited way to look at it--pick one small category, from one short period of time, and then draw big conclusions from it. Meanwhile, you're ignoring a lot of other categories.

For instance, go back to 1989 (25 years--a quarter century) and count the number of missions to other planets by all space powers. Count the number of successes too. Does that indicate that Russia is "trending up"?

And why would you count the construction of new launch facilities as "trending up"? Once you build a launch facility you have a launch facility. Building more of them is not something you necessarily need to do, and it's not necessarily a good thing either. One of the main reasons Russia is building a new launch facility is because geopolitical events are pushing them out of the one they spent so much time and money to develop. Most people would consider that a sign of dealing with serious problems, not a positive situation.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #9 on: 06/30/2014 01:20 pm »
Orbital launch rate is a very poor metric for measuring anything meaningful. The reason the US launch rate dipped in the 1970s while the Soviet rate went higher is because the US was building much more sophisticated satellites that could stay on orbit longer. So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.

That's something I've argued here in the past, and some people just don't get it.

Part of the problem is that NSF is way too focused on rockets, to the exclusion of what actually happens in space. Somehow "rockets = good" on this forum, and so "more launches = better." But that's the kind of calculating you expect from a kid. It's not how the operators think of things.

And the logic is rather goofy if you stretch it out a little bit. Should we consider Voyager 2 to be a failure because it is still operating 37 years later instead of dying soon after launch and requiring a replacement launch? After all, if more launches equals good, then spacecraft that last a long time, therefore not requiring more launches, must be bad, huh?

Silliness.

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #10 on: 06/30/2014 01:44 pm »
Of course launch rate is not the only metric, but that does not make it invalid. It seems to me a good general indicator of a country's funding and investment in space. Discounting it seems to me to be ignoring a bit of reality.

Ed Kyle

Offline baldusi

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #11 on: 06/30/2014 02:51 pm »
Of course launch rate is not the only metric, but that does not make it invalid. It seems to me a good general indicator of a country's funding and investment in space. Discounting it seems to me to be ignoring a bit of reality.

Ed Kyle
Please try to keep it in topic. Not another what-constitutes-leadership-in-space thread.
China had a failure and apparently not so many fleet deployments.
One interesting way of measureing launch rate is about the commercial offering. Here ITAR has hit them really hard, basically forcing them to either sell the satellite and launch service together. It has also hit them hard on their own fleet reliability. I believe that they will focus on LV vehicle transition and components development. My guess is that in 5 to 10 years they'll have a launch rate more akin to USA's.

Offline heinkel174

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #12 on: 07/01/2014 12:39 am »
IIRC high-rank CAST officials said there are 25-30 launches scheduled next year. So that’s probably where all the resource's gone.

Of course it’s overambitious but that’s the plan. I expect 20-25 missions next year if the launch campaigns of CZ-6 and 7 maiden flights are reasonably successful.

Come to think of it, the challenges they face next year is really daunting. Commissioning a new launch center, three new pads, maiden flight of 2-3 new rockets, a couple of new spacecrafts, another TG/SZ mission, start deploying COMPASS MEO constellation, etc.

Offline fatjohn1408

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #13 on: 07/01/2014 08:13 am »
IIRC high-rank CAST officials said there are 25-30 launches scheduled next year. So that’s probably where all the resource's gone.


Where did they say that?
Do you happen to have a source?

Offline Liss

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #14 on: 07/01/2014 08:32 am »
IIRC high-rank CAST officials said there are 25-30 launches scheduled next year. So that’s probably where all the resource's gone.


Where did they say that?
Do you happen to have a source?

http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014-01/20/c_126028255.htm (in Chinese)
This message reflects my personal opinion based on open sources of information.

Online Dalhousie

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #15 on: 07/01/2014 08:52 am »
[Here ITAR has hit them really hard, basically forcing them to either sell the satellite and launch service together. It has also hit them hard on their own fleet reliability. I believe that they will focus on LV vehicle transition and components development. My guess is that in 5 to 10 years they'll have a launch rate more akin to USA's.

Certainly hit their ability to sell services, but hasn't hit their reliability, since 2000 130 launches by my count, 3 failures. That's a 97.7% success rate.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline jcm

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #16 on: 07/03/2014 12:11 am »
I think you have to look at a longer period than just 6 months or so - the 2 year average seems more stable.
Although it doesn't include the 2014 data, since one of my plots was already cited in this thread (thanks Brian :-))
you may be interested in the following recent analysis I put together:

http://planet4589.org/space/papers/china2014.pdf
-----------------------------

Jonathan McDowell
http://planet4589.org

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #17 on: 07/03/2014 12:38 am »
For some reason the Chinese did many more launches in the second part of the year than in the first - the most extreme case was 1 single launch from January to mid-June 2011, then 20 (!) launches in the next 7 months.

This drought should end this month BTW - I have seen rumors of at least one, maybe more, launches in July.
Astronomy & spaceflight geek penguin. In a relationship w/ Space Shuttle Discovery. Current Priority: Chasing the Chinese Spaceflight Wonder Egg & A Certain Chinese Mars Rover

Offline baldusi

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #18 on: 07/03/2014 04:34 am »

[Here ITAR has hit them really hard, basically forcing them to either sell the satellite and launch service together. It has also hit them hard on their own fleet reliability. I believe that they will focus on LV vehicle transition and components development. My guess is that in 5 to 10 years they'll have a launch rate more akin to USA's.

Certainly hit their ability to sell services, but hasn't hit their reliability, since 2000 130 launches by my count, 3 failures. That's a 97.7% success rate.
I'm talking about their satellite's life times. Longer lived satellites require less launches. Longer lived launches are a commercial necessity.

Offline heinkel174

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #19 on: 07/03/2014 08:29 am »
I think it has something to do with the spring festival.

Most Chinese companies don’t do fly-in and fly-out, so if you don’t relocate, field deployments usually lasts several months, including many seven-days weeks. The spring festival is probably the only chance for those overworked burnouts to have a proper vocation for the better part of a year, so it’s usually quite long by Chinese standards. Note this is different from annual leave, which is sadly rare in China.

People who work field tours are given at least three weeks for the Chinese New Year, and bosses won’t be mad if you don’t pop up until the end of February. In other words, nothing serious can be done between late January and mid March. I can only recall two February launches over the last 10 years or so.

Now my guess is that they don’t like a prolonged suspension in a launch campaign, so you either finished it off by the end of calendar year (leave some margin for January) or wait until March. Given the length of Chinese launch campaigns, April is the earliest one can launch, and if anything went wrong, it can easily slip to May and June and July.
« Last Edit: 07/03/2014 09:58 am by heinkel174 »

Offline heinkel174

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #20 on: 07/03/2014 09:56 am »
ITAR certainly hit them hard in the late 1990s’. There were no CZ-3B launch for more than six years between 1998 and 2005, as no Chinese Comsat is larger enough to require a CZ-3B. Only one launch occurred in 2001.

Many versions of the Long March experienced long gaps between missions, which caused all sorts of problems from the quality control and risk reduction viewpoint. An insider told me that the reduced demand also have big impact on mission costs in the early 2000s.

They gradually recovered due increasing domestic demand and cooperation with the Europeans, but another round of ITAR tightening last year effectively killed ITAR-free Comsats. The different is this time the domestic demand is sufficient to keep a healthy operations tempo, and CGWIC managed to sell an average one Comsat per year to third world countries.

The next great challenge is fleet transition. AFAIK they’re approaching this with great caution, and the transition is going to be quite slow. The number of payloads that requires (or are scheduled to) be launched by the new CZ family before 2020 is relatively small: TG modules, Chang’e-5/6, possibly a precursor for the DHF-5 plus other payloads that can be switched between the old and new LVs.

IMO the new CZ family will remain more or less experimental till at least 2020 (except maybe CZ6) and the phase-out of DF-5 derivatives will only start after the new LVs are brought to a degree of maturity.
« Last Edit: 07/05/2014 01:41 am by heinkel174 »

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #21 on: 07/03/2014 03:55 pm »
ITAR certainly hit they hard in the late 1990s’. There are no CZ-3B launch for more than six years, as no Chinese Comsat is larger enough to require a CZ-3B. Only one launch occurred in 2001.

Many versions of the Long March experienced long gaps between missions, which caused all sorts of problems from the quality control and risk reduction viewpoint. An insider told me that the reduced demand also have big impact on mission costs in the early 2000s.

They gradually recovered due increasing domestic demand and cooperation with the Europeans, but another round of ITAR tightening last year effectively killed ITAR-free Comsats. The different is this time the domestic demand is sufficient to keep a healthy operations tempo, and CGWIC managed to sell an average one Comsat per year to third world countries.

The next great challenge is fleet transition. AFAIK they’re approaching this with great caution, and the transition is going to be quite slow. The number of payloads that requires (or are scheduled to) be launched by the new CZ family before 2020 is relatively small: TG modules, Chang’e-5/6, possibly a precursor for the DHF-5 plus other payloads that can be switched between the old and new LVs.

IMO the new CZ family will remain more or less experimental till at least 2020 (except maybe CZ6) and the phase-out of DF-5 derivatives will only start after the new LVs are brought to a degree of maturity.
There is no valid basis behind your statements. Provide primary sources and physical evidence to back your claims.

CZ-3B was retired and replaced with new failure tolerant CZ-3B/E because of recurring launch failures occurring with CZ-3B.

See this thread for more info: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30673.0
« Last Edit: 07/03/2014 04:03 pm by russianhalo117 »

Offline heinkel174

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #22 on: 07/04/2014 01:32 am »

There is no valid basis behind your statements. Provide primary sources and physical evidence to back your claims.

CZ-3B was retired and replaced with new failure tolerant CZ-3B/E because of recurring launch failures occurring with CZ-3B.

See this thread for more info: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30673.0

Which part of my comment do you consider baseless?

The 6+ years break was referring to the gap in the early 2000s, between the launch of Sinosat1 in July 1998 and Apstar 6 in April 2005. I thought it was quite obvious. There’s only one Long March launch of any type in 2001 (CZ-2F/SZ-2).

The tightening of export control in the late 90s caused China an immediately lost of 3-4 launch backlogs and a number of commitments. Before that, they launched or were planning to launch a variety of western built Comsats for domestic and international customers. That all changed after 1998.

CZ-3B was developed specifically for launching heavy foreign commercial Comsats. The first Chinese satellite tailored for CZ-3B is the DFH-4 bus whose development was not approved by the state commission until Oct 2001 (refer to any number of Chinese documents), almost ten years after the development of CZ-3B started.

The user manual
http://www.cgwic.com/news/2011/0531_LM-3A_Series_Launch_Vehicle_Users_Manual_Issue_2011.html
defines the CZ-3B/E by stretched boosters and first stage, which obviously aims to increase payload capacity. In other words, any CZ-3B with stretched tanks are called CZ-3B/E regardless of individual improvements made in GN&C, fairing, payload adaptor, flight profile and pad interface, etc. Actually, in Chinese literature it is far more common to refer to various versions as CZ-3B baseline, G1, G2 and G3, which could be subdivided further by different fairings.

The first long tank CZ-3B/E flown in 2007, 11 years after the catastrophic failure of its maiden flight. It is very inconceivable that they only introduced failure tolerate improvements a full decade after what happened in 1996. Also, the short tank CZ-3B continued flying after the introduction of CZ-3B/E, the last two being Y14/15 of the dual COMPASS launch in 2012.

There are at least six known (as oppose to two) configurations of CZ-3B by different combinations of modifications, plus another four for CZ-3C. This http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-ZNYZ201205014.htm paper gives a good summary. This does not account for the Y23 that launched Chang'e-3, which was further modified and sometimes referred to as CZ-3B G3/Z http://www.calt.com/xwzx/ztxw/ce3cgfs/zxxx/2013121214270464531b.html

Till now, each configuration is slightly different from others structurally and it causes a number of issues. That’s why there’s an ongoing effort of standardization which is also discussed in that paper. This is a situation not unlike the early Delta IVs.

Granted, the part of LV transition is mainly my speculation, but we do know what’s going to require a CZ-5/7 for launch before 2020, with a degree of certainty: cargo ship prototype, first of space station modules and Chang’e-5/6.

According to this http://www.spacechina.com/n25/n144/n206/n133097/c648303/content.html  article, development of the DFH-5 bus was not formally approved until this year. While a precursor might by ready in a few years, I think we can safely assume that DFH-5 will not enter serial production before say 2020. All other known potential payloads can be handled by existing CZs and does not absolutely need a CZ-5/7. Of course there could be any number of secret military satellites but we have no way to know anyways.

There are other clues implying that the Chinese are not in a rush to finish the fleet transition: no signs of CZ-7 pad construction in Jiuquan, no signs of CZ-7 pad conversion in Xichang, very recently completed rebuild of XSLC pad 3, which will continue servicing CZ-3, and transfer of some existing Long March tank production to the new Tianjin facility. It seems that DF-5 derivatives are going strong for at least next couple of years.
« Last Edit: 07/04/2014 09:22 am by heinkel174 »

Offline baldusi

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #23 on: 07/04/2014 11:58 am »
Once they have Wenchang, there's little to no point to use anything else for GTO, those extra 11 degrees mean a lot of payload. Not to mention the simplification of drop zones and risk management. I'm guessing that they are starting to work towards standardization to remain price competitive.

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #24 on: 07/28/2014 08:30 pm »
So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
Who is it that is launching U.S. astronauts into orbit now?

The point in recent years is the relative change.  Russia and China launch counts are trending up, they are launching people, and building new spaceports and launch vehicle families.  The U.S. and Europe are trending down, both depend on engines from the former USSR, and neither can launch people. 

 - Ed Kyle

I admire many of the Soviet era and Russia accomplishments and I truly admire those people that continue to make their program work. 

However, if it wasn't for the decision by the US and other western countries to keep former soviet engineers busy after the collapse of the Soviet Union with commercial launches and engine exports their entire space industry would likely be long dead and buried.

Wildly optimistic prediction, Superheavy recovery on IFT-4 or IFT-5

Offline cheesybagel

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #25 on: 07/29/2014 12:12 am »
However, if it wasn't for the decision by the US and other western countries to keep former soviet engineers busy after the collapse of the Soviet Union with commercial launches and engine exports their entire space industry would likely be long dead and buried.

I doubt it. Did their military hardware industry vanish? The Russians have more space clients than just the US.

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #26 on: 07/29/2014 03:43 am »
However, if it wasn't for the decision by the US and other western countries to keep former soviet engineers busy after the collapse of the Soviet Union with commercial launches and engine exports their entire space industry would likely be long dead and buried.

I doubt it. Did their military hardware industry vanish? The Russians have more space clients than just the US.
Military stuff don't really use liquid cryogenic hardware, only SRM are consider for new military hardware. I don't see anyone building large new liquid fueled  ballistic missiles. The DPRK don't count as they are a special case with technology transfer restrictions.

Offline heinkel174

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #27 on: 08/14/2014 11:08 am »

However, if it wasn't for the decision by the US and other western countries to keep former soviet engineers busy after the collapse of the Soviet Union with commercial launches and engine exports their entire space industry would likely be long dead and buried.

That sounds a bit overstating. Most institutes that benefited from cooperation with the West come from the civilian half of the Soviet space empire. With most well-known ‘space companies’ privatized in the 90s, I don’t think their profit was used directly to subsidized the other half of the industry.

By the end of Cold War, only Yuzhnoye and Makayev were still producing liquid-fueled missiles. The former happens to be non-Russian and the later didn’t leave large footprints on commercial space market. Solid rocket producers like MITT and Mashinostroyeniya rarely did business with outside world as many of their products aren’t really exportable. But they survived regardless.

Offline averagespacejoe

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #28 on: 11/21/2014 03:51 pm »
I take back everything I said about the lull. China is picking up the pace with earnest 2 launches in 24 hours and I think they are already at 12 so this year will slide in with the rest. Always good to see the worldwide launch rate go up this year we might break 90 we will have to see.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #29 on: 11/22/2014 01:27 am »
I take back everything I said about the lull. China is picking up the pace with earnest 2 launches in 24 hours and I think they are already at 12 so this year will slide in with the rest. Always good to see the worldwide launch rate go up this year we might break 90 we will have to see.

Ed Kyle answered it in the second post--China always does most of their launches in the last part of the year. So expect their launch rate to drop substantially around the turn of the year and then a lot of nothing until next fall.

Offline thespacecow

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Re: Why the Chinese orbital launch lull in 2014?
« Reply #30 on: 02/04/2024 03:07 am »
Revisiting this thread after 10 years, turns out Ed Kyle is absolutely correct to worry about China's upward trend in launch rate, China is now a powerhouse not just in launch but in spacecraft as well, they're the absolute #1 if not for SpaceX. Russia is not doing too bad either with 19 successful launches in 2023, more than US (exclude SpaceX) and a lot more than Europe.

Those who imply launch rate is meaningless, and that China launches more either due to their satellite being unreliable or that their launch rate would decrease after Beidou are proven to be completely wrong. In fact China's rapidly expanding satellite fleet is worrying the SpaceForce. "Silliness"? Far from it.

PS: Try to think from first principles instead of just regurgitating what you heard from "operators", it does wonders...

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