Long March 9 vs BFR, Falcon Heavy, Saturn V and SLS
How China’s biggest rocket stacks up to its past, present and future competitors
Big Falcon Rocket
If it’s completed, SpaceX’s BFR will be the most powerful rocket of them all. The idea is to fly a large booster on top of a single core, with a total height of 106 metres (348 feet). The entire rocket is reusable, with the booster and spaceship able to land on the ground. As there are no expendable stages, it could theoretically take 150,000 kilograms (330,693 pounds) to orbit, the Moon or Mars – including up to 100 people – enough for Elon Musk to realise his dream of colonising the Red Planet. The first uncrewed flight to Mars could be as soon as 2022.
Falcon Heavy
On 6 February 2018, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off for the first time, with a dummy payload of Elon Musk’s own Tesla Roadster car. Capable of taking 63,800 kilograms (140,655 pounds) to orbit, the Falcon Heavy is the largest rocket in operation today, able to take more cargo to orbit than any rocket since the Saturn V’s final flight in 1973. However, the rocket faces an uncertain future, as the market for it is small. Elon Musk has already started to shift focus to its successor, the BFR, noting that he’s not sure how often the Falcon Heavy will fly.
Saturn V
NASA’s Saturn V rocket remains the biggest rocket ever built. In total it launched 13 times, and sent six successful Apollo missions to the Moon. Apollo 13 should have been the third Moon mission but due to an explosion on the spacecraft it was forced to abandon the mission. Each launch carried three people, with the rocket capable of taking about 43,500 kilograms (95,900 pounds) to the Moon. This included the lunar lander and the command module, and on later Apollo missions lunar rovers that were driven on the surface. No rocket has come close to its power yet.
Space Launch System
The Space Launch System (SLS) is NASA’s answer to an ever-present desire to explore the Solar System. While some have bemoaned its cost and time taken to build, NASA is pushing ahead with a planned first launch (uncrewed) in 2020. Different variants are being designed, with a payload capacity of between 70,000 and 130,000 kilograms (154,324 and 286,601 pounds). The rocket will be used to launch NASA’s crewed Orion spacecraft, capable of taking up to six astronauts to orbit, and it may also launch an uncrewed mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa.
“They’ve proven they can get to space pretty regularly, and I don’t see why they can’t do a lot more”
Henry Hertzfeld
(AAPT). That would be a big step forward in proving they are serious about this rocket.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the main contractor for the Chinese space programme, has also said it is looking into making the rocket reusable, putting it on a par with the more advanced offerings from SpaceX and Blue Origin. While the details still aren’t clear, it appears it’s looking into the possibility of the boosters on the Long March 9 being reusable to keep launch costs down. It is planning to test a reusable first stage of a rocket, called the Long March 8, which could launch as early as 2021.
Some argue, though, that such a rocket is unnecessary. China has yet to detail how it would plan to take astronauts to the Moon or Mars, and one could question how much desire there really is to go to these destinations. As NASA found with its Saturn V rocket, and more recently the SLS, big rockets are both expensive and prone to delays. While they might seem like a natural progression, it’s not always the best way to continue exploring space. And especially with the SLS, the desire to build the rocket can override any thoughts of why it is being built in the first place.
“There’s nothing natural about it,” Roger Launius, former chief historian of NASA, tells All About
Space. “You have to ask the question, what’s the point of this investment? And everybody’s had that problem. That includes the nation states who want to do these things all the way down to the entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.”
SpaceX has found something similar with its Falcon Heavy rocket, which launched for the first time in February 2018. That inaugural launch carried nothing but Elon Musk’s own Tesla Roadster
“You’ve got to make sure everything works right. There are big powerful engines, and things go wrong” Henry Hertzfeld
car into space, a publicity stunt on Musk’s behalf that intended to show in part how different SpaceX was compared to its stuffier national counterparts. But it also had a somewhat undesired effect of demonstrating there is little desire for such a heavy booster. The Falcon Heavy has a handful of upcoming launches planned, but already it is facing a dwindling market as satellites become smaller, and launch costs become cheaper – by their own design, thanks to their reusable Falcon boosters. It highlights, though, that while China appears to be going ahead with this new rocket, there is little market for one super-heavy-lift rocket, let alone three if the SLS and BFR also reach completion. Russia has even suggested it may also be looking at getting back into this launch arena.
If China is serious about going to the Moon or Mars, then the rocket might make sense. It could very feasibly be used as part of a plan to build a human lunar research base, which the country has suggested it is looking to build. And they have precedent so far for following through with their convictions, including launching an experimental space station (Tiangong-1) in 2011, sending a rover to the Moon in 2013 and preparing a mission to the far side of the Moon. To support this latter mission, Chang’e 4, they sent a relay satellite to the Moon in May 2018 – again showing they are serious.
“They’ve proven that they mean it,” Henry Hertzfeld, research professor of Space Policy and International Affairs at George Washington University, tells All About Space. “If they want to put another space station up or go to the Moon then sure, the bigger the rocket the more stuff you can carry up and go further. They’ve proven they can get to space pretty regularly, and I don’t see why they can’t do a lot more. They have a different type of government and if they decide to do something, they do it.”
When it comes to funding that’s especially true, as it appears China are more willing than their US counterparts to put their money where their mouth is. NASA has struggled with delays and funding for its SLS rocket, with the launch date slipping from 2018 to most likely 2020. But if the Long March 9 rocket gets approved – which hasn’t happened officially just yet – then things might progress rather more smoothly. “Every five years they come out with a plan, and they follow it,” says Hertzfeld.
That being said, it’s not clear how much the Long March 9 will cost. Very little is known about how much China spends on its space programme, with even less known about how much they intend to spend on this rocket. But considering they are one of only two nations in the world – the other being Russia – that can currently send humans to space, and that they’ve launched a small space station and have landed on the Moon, it’s probably safe to assume they are pumping quite a lot of money into space. When their space programmes need money, they appear to find the funding from somewhere. “Rockets aren’t cheap,” says Hertzfeld. “You’ve got to have a lot of tests, got to make sure everything works right. There are big powerful engines, and things go wrong. I’m sure it’s expensive.”
What’s clear though is that China is serious about its space ambitions, further solidified by the Long March 9. While the exact need for the rocket is questionable, there’s no doubt that they will need something of this size if they truly want to send humans to the Moon and Mars. They’ll have no shortage of competitors but, in lieu of international cooperation for political reasons, going it alone is their only option. And given what they’ve accomplished so far, you wouldn’t put it past them being successful. “The Long March 9 could very well help put Chinese astronauts on the Moon,” said Jones. And who knows what might be next.