The successful launch of the world’s first methane-fueled rocket. A Chinese startup succeeded in successfully launching the first methane-fueled rocket, leaving behind its main competitor, the American company SpaceX. Methane is a relatively cleaner fuel source than other rocket fuels and is easier to recover before reuse.
The successful launch of the world’s first methane-fueled rocket
The Chinese startup “LandSpace” succeeded in defeating Elon Musk’s SpaceX company by successfully launching its methane-fueled rocket.
The achievement puts China at the forefront of this new space technology after two US-based companies, including SpaceX, failed in their attempts earlier this year with similar technologies, according to state media South China Morning Post.
Land Space, which is seen as a Chinese rival to US SpaceX, hopes the launch will boost the use of methane as a reliable next-generation rocket fuel.
The Land Space company’s methane-fueled rocket known as Zhuque-2 or ZQ-2 was launched at 9:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday from the Zhuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s Gobi Desert to deliver a test payload to the Khurshid Ahang orbit, becoming the first rocket in history. It will successfully go to space with methane fuel.
Of course, this company had previously launched this rocket in December of last year, but the second stage of the rocket suffered a malfunction and could not reach its intended orbit.
Methane rocket
The ZQ-2 missile is a two-stage liquid-fueled rocket that is 49.5 meters tall and nearly 3.35 meters in diameter, and both stages use independently developed engines.
The first stage of the rocket uses four Tianque-12 (TQ-12) liquid oxygen methane engines that can provide 268 tons of thrust, while the second stage of the rocket uses one TQ-12 engine and one TQ-11 engine. he does.
Although methane is 20 percent less dense than kerosene, it theoretically provides higher thrust—thrust is a measure of an engine’s efficiency in producing thrust.
In addition, the use of liquid kerosene creates soot in the engine, which requires thorough cleaning before reuse. Meanwhile, methane is highly volatile and burns cleaner, reducing the amount of post-recovery work and also increasing the life of the rocket engine.
Since methane and oxygen have similar boiling points, unlike hydrogen and oxygen, which require separate cabins, they can be placed in the same compartment. The designers of this missile have been able to use this gift to reduce the weight of the missile and at the same time increase its cargo capacity. It is worth mentioning that there are abundant reserves of methane on Mars that can be used to fuel future manned missions to Earth.
China defeated America
The successful launch of the ZQ-2 rocket, also known as Rosefinch 2, saw the placement of a four-ton satellite into Khurshidahong orbit. While for near-Earth orbits, it can carry up to six tons of cargo into space.
The Chinese media report added that Landspace plans to replace the TQ-11 engine with its TQ-15A engine, which can generate 80 tons of thrust, and that improvements to the TQ-12 engine are also on the horizon.
This upgrade will help further increase the ZQ-2’s payload capacity and further reduce launch costs, making it a direct competitor to SpaceX.
Interestingly, SpaceX and another American company, Relativity Space, had unveiled their methane-fueled rocket, but it failed to reach Earth’s orbit on its first launch.
SpaceX has now made more than a thousand modifications to the Starship rocket before its second launch attempt, but there is still no guarantee of a successful launch.
This issue that this achievement was achieved by a Chinese startup and not by NASA or a government-funded space agency; It shows the huge leaps China’s space ecosystem has made in recent years, just like other areas of technology such as quantum computing and hypersonic flight where China has also excelled.
This means that China is no longer trying to catch up with America, but has overtaken it in the technology development competition.