RobnHood [she/her]

Transgender Lesbian Communist. Proud member of Lesbollah.

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Joined 6 years ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2020

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  • NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that China would likely conducted a manned lunar orbit mission in 2027. Should that happen, three Taikonauts would be the first humans since Apollo 17 in 1972 to orbit the Moon. Personally, I think this is feasible, but unlikely. Although the Mengzhou lunar-capable crewed spacecraft should be ready by then, the problem will be it’s carrier rocket. Long March 10 (CZ-10) is a tri-core partially reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle which will launch both the Mengzhou and Lanyue spacecraft separately into low-lunar orbit to conduct a crewed lunar landing mission.

    Although similar in concept to the Falcon Heavy rocket, it is of course very different and uses completely different engines and recovery system, as well as having a larger payload capacity. So don’t let spacex fanboys tell you that its a cheap copy. Long March 10 ideally will conduct it’s first launch sometime in 2027, carrying an uncrewed Mengzhou spacecraft to the Moon as part of Mengzhou-2. Unless that happens in very early 2027, then I find it hard to imagine CALT (China Academy of Vehicle Launch Technology) will have another CZ-10 ready for a second 2027 mission. CALT does plan to launch 3 ‘single stick’ variants of CZ-10 this year, a CZ-10B (LEO Cargo Variant) test flight sometime in June hopefully, and two CZ-10A (LEO Human Rated) launches. The first CZ-10A will launch an experimental lunar satellite. The second will be Mengzhou-1, which will carry cargo to the Tiangong Space station in September. However, after the first CZ-10 launch they will be collecting and analyzing data from the mission and making adjustments to the design before the next launch, which will of course take a great deal of time. I think Isaacman only said that because Artemis 3 has already been pushed back to late 2027 and he wants more funding from congress and to get Blue Origin and SpaceX to make some progress on their lunar landing vehicles, which has been lacking to say the least.