China-based Beijing Astronautics Experiment Institute of Technology has completed testing of the YF-79 engine used in the Long March 9 Moon rocket.
The Beijing Astronautics Experiment Institute of Technology (BAEIT) has completed testing of a new engine that will power the rocket for China's moon mission. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that engineers claimed they had overcome technical difficulties in a prototype of the engine, called the YF-79, which would be mounted on a three-stage Long March 9 rocket.
BAEIT, a unit of state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), completed three ground tests of a hydrogen-oxygen engine and a total of 12 ignition tests last week. The Long March 9 rocket will surpass China's Long March 5 as the most powerful heavy-lift launch vehicle and will use three different types of engines in its three stages. China wants to use this rocket to send astronauts with heavy cargo for its purpose of establishing a permanent lunar base on the Moon.
About the Long March 9 Rocket
The Long March 9 rocket is said to have a low-Earth orbit (LEO) payload capacity of 50 to 140 tonnes, making it more powerful than the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket (64 tonnes). This makes it almost six times more powerful than the Long March 5 which has a carrying capacity of 25 tonnes. According to the SCMP, the Long March 9 will be equipped with three different classes of engines that use different fuel combinations.
The first stage will use four YF-130 engines that use a kerosene-oxygen combination, the second stage will use two YF-90 engines and the third and final stage will be equipped with four recently tested YF-79 engines ( They use hydrogen- oxygen combination propellants).
The SCMP says the rocket will be used for missions to Mars in addition to sending crew and cargo to the Moon. For this reason, BAEIT engineers are developing it as a launch vehicle that would be powerful enough to carry the spacecraft into deep space with maximum efficiency. This comes after reports in early September when Chinese experts claimed that the SF-79 engine is more powerful and efficient than the RL-10 engine, which NASA is using for the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (SLS) of its Space Launch System (SLS rocket). ICPS).
According to NASA's claims, the SLS rocket will become the most powerful rocket ever built under the unmanned Artemis 1 mission. However, the rocket's launch has been delayed several times due to technical snags and fuel leakage. Artemis 1 is the first mission of NASA's Artemis program under which the agency plans to take American astronauts back to the Moon. These ambitions are in line with China's space program, which aims to land a Chinese astronaut on the lunar surface within this decade.
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