It was a field day for reporters who wanted a glimpse into how China's space program is coming along, when China revealed an up, close, and personal look to its Long March 9 (LM-9) rocket.
The LM-9 size is impressive; it has a diameter of 10 meters and a height of 100 meters. It is these dimensions that justifies the 6000 tons of thrust coming from four of its first stage engines. According to Popular Science, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) Chief Designer Long Lehao views its use to transfer low Earth orbit machines, Earth-Moon transfer modules, as well as Earth-Mars transfer modules.
The Long March-9 was also designed for a lot of developments in the works for the CALT. It could be instrumental in China's plans to launch the world's first space-based solar farms into orbit, but the plans only get more ambitious from there. Aside from the Mars plans-already more ambitious than anything previously thought of-the LM-9 is also meant to carry the modules for creating a lunar base piece by piece.
The applications are endless. Based on this, China is looking to speed up the development of its space program; it is looking at the end of this year or early next year as the period when humanity will come back on the moon. China is planning a controlled lunar landing, to send a probe right into the unexplored territory of the far side of the moon, also known as the dark side.
China has recently released a paper on its plans, VOA News reports. China's plans include humanity's first landing on Mars. By doing these things, China hopes to carry out its vision of becoming not only a global power but also a space power.
To date, China's accomplishments have included a space mission that was a month long. Spaceflight is near perfected by the Chinese space agency. The next phase, according to the paper, would be to send probes to the moon-the aforementioned dark side landing.
To this end, the help of other countries is needed, and Russia is ready to help. Russian media have already revealed that the Sino-Russian cooperation in this endeavor is already warming up; Russia has agreed to help China's development of a super-heavy space rocket along to help in the deep space missions that the space agency is looking at.
