China completes engine tests for Moon rocket more powerful than Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy

The Beijing Astronautics Experiment Institute of Technology (BAEIT) has completed testing a new engine that would power the rocket intended for China’s Moon missions. The engineers claimed that they are past the technical difficulties in the prototype of the engine named YF-79 which will be fitted on the three-stage Long March 9 rocket, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. 

BAEIT, a unit of state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), completed three ground tests of the hydrogen-oxygen engine and completed 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 intends to use this rocket to send astronauts to the Moon along with heavy cargo for its objective of establishing a permanent lunar base. 

(Long March 5B rocket; Image: AP)

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, which makes it more powerful than Elon Musk-owned SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket (64 tons). This also makes it almost six times more powerful than Long March 5 which has a capacity of 25 tons. According to SCMP, the Long March 9 would be equipped with engines from three different classes that use different fuel combinations. 

The first stage would use four YF-130 engines that use the kerosene-oxygen combination, the second stage would use two YF-90 engines and the third and final stage would be equipped with four recently tested YF-79 engines (they use hydrogen-oxygen combination propellant).

SCMP says that this rocket, apart from sending crew and cargo to the Moon, will also be used for missions to Mars. Due to this reason, the BAEIT engineers are developing it as a launch vehicle that would be powerful enough to propel spacecraft into deep space with maximum efficiency. This comes after reports from early September when Chinese experts claimed that the SF-79 engine is more powerful and efficient that the RL-10 engine which NASA is using for its Space Launch System's (SLS rocket) Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). 

The SLS rocket, as per NASA's claims, will liftoff under the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission as the most powerful rocket ever built. However, the rocket's launch has been delayed several times due to technical faults and fuel leaks. 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 as part of which it aims to land a Chinese astronaut on the lunar surface within this decade.

Image: AP