Main Engine Cut Off - T+178: Andrew Jones, on China’s Chang’e-5, 2021 Plans, and More

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

Andrew Jones returns to the show for the third time to talk about China’s current missions and future plans, including Chang’e-5, Tianwen-1, the Chinese Space Station, and the international politics surrounding it. And then we dig into the Chinese commercial market a bit—launch companies and remote sensing companies are raising a ton of money, but it’s not yet clear what effect that will have on the global market.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, David, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, and seven anonymous—and 460 other supporters.TopicsAndrew Jones (@AJ_FI) / TwitterAndrew Jones, SpaceNewsAndrew Jones, Space.comAndrew Jones, The Planetary SocietyChang’e-5 spacecraft prepare for historic lunar orbit rendezvous, sample relay - SpaceNewsChina recovers Chang’e-5 moon samples after complex 23-day mission - SpaceNewsChang’e-5 orbiter embarks on extended mission to Sun-Earth Lagrange point - SpaceNewsTianwen-1 launches for Mars, marking dawn of Chinese interplanetary exploration - SpaceNewsChina’s CASC targets more than 40 space launches in 2021 - SpaceNewsChina gears up for space station, cargo and crewed mission launches - SpaceNewsChinese reusable experimental spacecraft releases object before returning to Earth - SpaceNewsChina pushes ahead with super-heavy-lift Long March 9 - SpaceNewsChina’s Landspace raises $175 million for Zhuque-2 launch vehicles - SpaceNewsRemote sensing satellite firm completes huge funding round as Chinese space sector activity accelerates - SpaceNewsSpacety shares first images from small C-band SAR satellite - SpaceNewsThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max Justus

Hello and welcome back to Main Engine Cutoff. I'm Anthony Colangelo. We're going to get started here in 2021 with a really fun show. It's been busy news out of China for the last several months with Chang'e 5 and a whole bunch of private companies starting up and a lot of plans for 2021. So I brought back our favorite guest about China, Andrew Jones. He's a writer for Space News, Space.com, a bunch of other outlets. And he is a fantastic guest to talk to about all things China. So I'm going to help or have him help me demystify some things going on. We're going to talk about Chang'e 5. We're going to talk about the commercial companies springing up in China,

how all of that interacts. And I think you and I will both come away with more understanding of China's plans overall and the way that we should think about these things as we're reading them in the news. But before we get there, I want to say thank you to everyone out there who supports Main Engine Cutoff. We are sitting at 496 patrons of this show. We're almost to 500. So let's just get a couple more on there. Get over that 500 number. It is the way that you support the show entirely listener funded.

No ads, as you know, if you've listened before. No external funding. It's just from you. And this episode has been produced by 36 executive producers. Thanks to Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, David, Eunice, Rob, Tim Dodd, the Everdashnaut, Frank, Julian, and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, and seven anonymous executive producers.

Thank you all so much for making this episode possible. If you want to help get us over that 500 number and get an extra podcast in your life each week, head over there to mainenginecutoff.com slash support. If you join up at the $3 a month level, you will get an extra show in your feed every week where I give you all the headlines of the week, talk about stories that don't quite make it here on the main show, but might still be interesting to follow along with. It's a great way to get some more podcasts in your life, stay up on Space News, and support Miko. So thank you all so much for everyone that has headed over there already to support. And with that, let's give Andrew a call. Andrew Jones, welcome back to Main Engine Cutoff.

Second, third time? Third, I think. So you've been busy for the past couple of months in terms of Chinese space ambitions. They've been quite busy, so I figured there's a couple different things I wanted to talk to you about. Number one, Chang'e 5 has been, now it's complete, and it's been kind of dominating the headlines from things that you're writing lately because it's such an important mission

and turned out really successfully, which we'll talk about. And then we're getting into some really interesting time for the Chinese space program overall, where they're heading into this future plan that we've been hearing about for a couple of years now. They're kind of hitting a critical portion of that. And then recently, there's been a lot of talk about private companies, commercial companies in China getting some big funding.

And there's this crazy thing about commercial cargo, which we'll talk about. So I kind of want to just meander through that and have basically what this is, is that I have a lot of questions, and you're the only person I know that can answer them. So welcome to answering Anthony's questions hour. Is this gonna be quickfire or in depth? I don't know. I have no idea. I'm just trying to figure some things out. So you know, well, first, let's talk about Chang'e 5. What is your overall take on that mission? It was a 23-day mission overall, launched to recovery of the samples.

It seemed to go pretty flawlessly. Has there been anything that has come up since it got back that wasn't flawless, or was it perfect? Almost perfect, yeah. It was a tremendous mission. It was very intense to follow and try to work out when things are going to happen. Luckily, we had a leak on Chinese social media, which gave very accurate times for when these major mission events were going to take place. So after a few days, think like we we saw this leak and we saw oh wow these times actually match up with what's happened so far so yeah that took a

bit of the pressure and suspense off but it was still you know waiting around for things to happen and then no live streaming and then waiting for trying to say yay it was successful well so the no live streaming thing that's that's the interesting part right they they streamed the launch they had quite grand coverage of the launch yeah we were spoiled with the launch yeah we got spoiled with the launch so we had expectations set and then there was a stream up for the landing that they then pulled you know a couple minutes in what what do you make of all that um that that kind of happens now and again it's um it's hard to say what what goes on but it it would seem that maybe some higher up kind of gets nervous um when it gets close to the time because basically i mean china's space program is um you know it's a national symbol so they are very very careful

about anything looking bad so it's you know kind of similar for nasa in a way but it's you know a very different kind of um media culture and control over the media and so on so yeah so some people get nervous and then just like no it's just this is not happening how did you think this is going to happen right so it feels a bit like that um but yeah very hard to know what's going on it's just weird to me that they did such big coverage of the launch, because it's not like if something went wrong in the landing, they could just say, we never launched a moon lander. Like, that was never a thing that we did.

It's strange. Yeah, it's just very, very different. So, in a unique political and cultural environment. I think we need to send some of the boca chica crew over to china and just have them post up somewhere yeah it sounds safe right their affairs first yeah exactly yeah i mean like you know this big it's a bit close to national security to be um wanting to even think about that kind of stuff. So the lander itself, I think what we've seen this year in terms of sample return missions,

we've seen Osiris-Rex gather too much sample from Bennu. We saw Hayabusa 2 come back with some samples from Ryugu. And then this was the other big sample return mission. It seemed to go, they got right about what the plans were for sampling, both through drill core and scooping. How do you, and then now they're going to kind of divvy these samples out, which seems to be a thing that they're saying, they're trying to use this as a soft power move, the way that, you know, NASA and Russia have in

the past, where they're going to divvy these out to friendly nations. Has there been any thing that you've seen in terms of who's going to get these samples or where they're going to divvy these out to friendly nations. Has there been anything that you've seen in terms of who's going to get these samples or what they're going to do with them? Okay, so for a long time, because this mission was going to launch back in 2017 before the second Long March 5 failed. So they had been talking with the European Space Agency about collaborating on the science and not just like giving a token amount of samples, but also working together on the analysis of these samples.

But that kind of petered out and nothing's really happened. They started talking about this immediately after the samples were returned successfully and said, yes, we're working with the European Space Agency. But my understanding is from speaking to people that there hasn't been any new movement on this. So that seems like they were trying to use it for PR, for soft power and say, well, look, we're willing to work with the European Space Agency. And that might be targeted at someone across the Atlantic or the people who are coming

away from your point of view. So, yeah, that was an interesting thing. About the landing, just quickly, so the rendezvous and docking in orbit was the new thing there for China, as well as the lift-off from the moon. So, you know, so lifting off in a vacuum in a particular temperature environment and also having no launch set up like you would back on Earth.

So those were the really big, crucial parts of the mission. Everything else they'd kind of tested before. That was big. With the samples they got, it was 1.731 kilos and they were aiming for around 2 kilograms. So that sounds like they almost

got everything they wanted. However, it turns out that they didn't get as much as they planned with the drill. So the breakdown was going to be 1.5 kilograms with scooping and the scooping actually went faster than planned they took few um fewer scoops than planned to you know get their allocation sorted but with the drill they they hit they hit some um stones or slates beneath the ground which they decided it's not worth trying to go through these and getting stuck or having a time delay and so on because the the time pressure on this stage of the mission was very tight because you know the orbit are waiting in lunar orbit and so on the rendezvous

window so they decided to okay they got down to think around about a meter um rather than the two meters and that would explain the the shortfall from the two kilogram so that that didn't go you know 100 according to plan. But otherwise, I mean, all these different things which they pulled off was, you know, very, very impressive. Yeah, especially the rendezvous and docking portion. Definitely, you know, pushing not only autonomous work that they've been doing, but also being able to track all of that to the, you know, very fine measurements that you

need to be able to do that successfully certainly says a lot for the future. And I think, I don't know how much this maps, but I remember early days, there was a lot of talk about how the mission profile here is very similar to what an Apollo-style lunar landing would be. Is there any indication that this really is a good kind of proof of concept for what they're planning for their future Lunar plans, or is it too far out to really figure out how much of Chang'e 5 will carry over in terms of flight profile? Yeah, it's a bit hard to say how much of this will, you know,

go into the future larger plans. But yeah, it's certainly useful for those plans, which they certainly have. I mean, last year they launched the kind of prototype of a new generation crewed spacecraft on the Long March 5B, which was like a test mission for the space station module launch. So they tested that like a boilerplate version. They're working on the Long March 9, which will be used for infrastructure for crewed lunar missions.

They have a concept for, which would be like Long March 5 Heavy, or so-called 921 rocket, which takes the name from the kind of the code name for the Chinese human spaceflight plans. for the Chinese human spaceflight plans. So they have had some kind of proposals, like call for proposals for lander concepts as well. So they're working on all the different moving parts, all the parts of the puzzle, really, for landing on the moon. So the fact that they went for this particular mission profile, you know, it's not, I don't think you can just write it off as a, you know, a coincidence or anything.

The other thing it's useful for is the planned Mars sample return, which they'll be launching later this decade. Yeah, it's easy to forget that they are coming up on the time when they're going to have a Mars lander as well that gets to orbit in, I think I saw, February? Yeah, the orbiter should go into orbit on February 10, and then the landing should happen around May. So they're doing Viking style, right, where they hang out in orbit for a while and then go for their landing. So, I mean, that, like you're saying, this might have more implications for Mars sample return, which, aside from all of the human stuff that we'll talk about in a second, their timeline and NASA's timeline, or NASA and ESA's timeline, I should say, for Mars sample return lines up interestingly. NASA's going a three mission style. I think China would do an all in one. NASA's going a three-mission style, I think China would do an all-in-one? It might have changed. They were planning to do a single launch on a Long March 9, but then I think, and there hasn't been anything really official about this,

but there's another concept, which would be a Long March 5 and a Long March 3B. So, yeah, it's still, well, it probably has been decided by now, but last time I saw anything coming out of there, it looked like they had switched plans. So, yeah, it's very hard to get anything new on that one. But it's, I mean, that could be huge. A Mars sample turn would be huge. So it'd be interesting if they try and speed it up to try to compete with ESA and NASA, but let's see. Yeah. So in terms of what we'll see this year, it seems to be that

the space station plans that they have, where they're going to start launching this pretty soon here, is going to be the dominant story out of China for the year, aside from the Mars lander that we just talked about. But this is really a big focus this year. So where do plans currently sit? What kind of timeline should we expect for the rollout of this space station? Okay, so the Long March 5B, which will be launching this core module, that is pretty much ready. There was a cargo ship on the Yangtze which left port today and it's heading to Tianjin up in the north, which is where the Long March 5B is manufactured and assembled and tested. So it may well be on the way to pick that up already and then deliver that to Wanchang in, say, that'll happen then within two weeks, let's say. So then it's usually around two months for Long March 5B,

like the launch campaign. So we could see this launching in the second half of March already. And then that would be followed by a Tianzhou cargo and refueling mission. And then after that, the Shenzhou 12 crewed mission. So it looks like all of this is going to happen in the first half of this year. But they haven't given precise times because, well, they don't have to and they don't want to. So they're going to launch the core module first and they're going to start doing crewed missions before adding on too many modules because they've got, I think, I forget the exact number of modules, but it's almost mirror-like in that it has, you know, what is it, three or four modules in the final plans for Tianhe-1?

Yeah, there's three modules, each around 20 tons. And there's a docking hub, which is going up with this Tianhe core module. They're going to go, yeah, the Spurs crewed mission is going to go and check out the life support and robotic arm and so on. So check that everything is ready, spend a bit of time in orbit, and then they'll move on to these two experiment modules. Yeah, actually, this can be, it could be expanded to up to six modules. Yeah, actually, this can be, it could be expanded to up to six modules. There was a picture last year which kind of showed like two Tianhe core modules next to each other. So one could be like an engineering model. So it's kind of like the Chang'e missions maybe where they've got a backup for each one. So if everything goes well, and especially if there was international interest, and I suppose that depends partly as well

on the state of the, or the fate of the ISS, and if there are any other partners who would have money to spare, then yeah, they could be expanded. One thing I'm curious about with the plans overall is that it seems like they're planning for a seriously increased rate of human launches as part of the space station program. Up until now, they've done one every handful of years. They haven't flown one since 2016, I want to say. And it was very sporadic for the first decade of crewed flights.

the first decade of crewed flights. Is there any indication as to is that something that we should be keeping a close eye on? Or do you think at this point they've flown enough flights that they can easily, considering the resources they're working with, step up to flying twice a year

for the space station? Yeah, so what is it? Six missions altogether since 2003, which is nothing compared to Russia and the United States. However, what they've done is they've kind of pushed the envelope each time. So they've done single astronaut, then a crew of two, then spacewalks and so on, then three, and then what was it? Last time was a month, which was more than double their previous record. So they were each time pushing a bit.

So they must be fairly confident that they are able to handle the ground operations and keep everything running smoothly. I think they've learned a lot through cooperation with Russia in particular. They also have agreements with countries like Italy as well, which will have helped. So it seems that they've just been happy to make steps each time rather than taking any risks or spending unnecessarily on this. So for a long time, people were wondering, OK, are they for real?

Are they just trying to get into the ISS and know that they can't? Are they not bothering? But it just seems that they just take a different long-term approach rather than having constant missions. Now, you said something a second ago that I find interesting to pick your brain on about the space station plans internationally. They, for a long time, have worked with ESA, as you mentioned, on Chang'e 5, and then they've also sent some astronauts over to do training alongside the Taikonauts.

There's an expectation, I think, that there would be an international participation element to the Chinese space station at some point. But you said, you know, if they find partners that have money to spare, that they might, you know, jump on something. We're seeing a fracturing of the international space station relationship, I think, between Russia and the NASA partners. There's been an increase of bickering, I would say, the last couple years. ISS is starting to have random leaks and some issues that make me at least question the longevity of the ISS itself. It could be quite a shakeup the next couple years. Russia doesn't exactly have the biggest budget in space. I assume that, you know, if they fall out of the

ISS program, they would want to work with China at some point because Russia is also looking for somebody that has some cash to spare. Is that something that's in the cards or because Russia doesn't have any cash and China wants somebody with cash? How does that shake out there? That's one of a number of things on the long list of questions I really want to investigate. Um, that's not something I've, um, I, I have, um, I don't, I don't have much insight into what Russia's doing, so I haven't, uh, I haven't chased this up. So we're into Andrew's opinion time here.

And it's something that we've, you know, we've been seeing, um, especially with trampoline man on twitter and so on so um yeah it's it's it's a very interesting question and it's just something all i can from my point of view it's something i'm very interested in watching but i don't have any kind of insight at the moment as to um what's going on i mean there, there are frequently China and Russia like to make statements on oh, we're going to do something on the moon and then in six months they'll say the same thing

and there's no added substance but I haven't seen anything explicit about human spaceflight I don't think in that so it's a possibility but yeah, I mean there would be a number of stumbling blocks for that relationship as well. So it's, yeah. you know, the NASA partners are not going to be paying money for Soyuz launches is a pretty big sticking point, because that was a major source of funding for Roscosmos. If they are, you know,

China's already got their own ride to their space station. What do they need the Soyuz for other than maybe an increased flight rate? You know, that could be something that that is a poison pail of some sort for Russia to swallow is that, oh, we're not actually going to be making money from them either. It could be, you know, in a weird spot overall. The other side of it is, is ESA, right? How serious is that partnership where they were sending astronauts over to train? They're obviously working on Chang'e 5. Does that seem like something that, that ESA is doing because, you know, there's an available partner and they want to scale up their space operations, or is it something that, that you would put a lot of weight in seeing that continue?

I think it's gone a bit quiet on that front. So with Chang'e 5, I mean, that was limited to ground station support. And then there was discussion on the science and on the analysis side. And that didn't happen. So those are kind of separate from the human space light thing. With approaching China with the idea of European astronauts going up to the Chinese space station, that was kind of trying to keep options open because NASA could be, you know, not the easiest of partners with regards to the International Space Station at times. But also it was, given how close those two partners are anyway, NASA and ESA, then they still had to have some kind of understanding going forward on why would that be smart and so on.

I think that there was some kind of understanding that that would give ESA an insight into China's operations, which would be beneficial to other parties who might not otherwise like that arrangement. I like this theory. Yeah, but I think things have gone a bit quiet on that. With regards to a first visit to the Chinese space station, it might be something more political related to the Belt and Road Initiative. It could be Russia, depending on how things go. But as you say, neither of those countries would want to seed the kind of performing the launches and being responsible for everything like that. So China likes to say basically that, look, this space station is open

to everyone across the world, right? But they're not letting anyone in to the core parts of this project. So it's not like the ISS where people have these different partners have crucial roles in the project. It's, you know, China likes these different partners have, you know, crucial roles in the project.

It's, you know, China likes to be in control of everything. Yeah. And certainly when you consider the future of partnerships, the flight opportunity side on NASA's side have greatly increased now that commercial crew is flying. So if you're ESA and you're interested in getting your astronauts to space, there's a lot more seats available over here right now. And I do like your theory that ESA is going to scoop out, you know, what's going on over here and let's see. And then maybe NASA, because NASA can't talk to China, is like, hey, what did you, how was your trip? How did everything go over there? I like that theory a little bit. I like that theory a little bit. It's just interesting to consider, you know, how these partners lean on each other in terms of, well, you know, we're going to the moon, so only a couple spots available would be a shame if, you know, we flew a couple more Canadians or something, because you're obviously booked up with China over there.

There's, it seems like there's a lot of, you know, potential conflict. And really, I think that just speaks to the amount of shakeup that we could see in the next decade here as everyone's plans move on and diverge. It's just a fun time to watch all this. votes in a few places. And then if you look, there would probably have been a change of administrator, even if the incumbent had won, and their approach, the America first kind of line of approach, could that have led to a point, especially with the Artemis Accords and so on, of the US saying, look, you either deal with us or you deal with China and no in between. So that would have put ESA and Russia in quite a position. I think the quote that you're looking for is you're either with us or against us.

I think that's the quote you're looking for. Going back a bit further, yes, that's it. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, yeah. So, yeah, it's things uh can turn quite quickly and there's lots of things going on in the background so it's fascinating times as you say the one last thing that i want to dig into is a bit of a broader topic about the and and we'll start on the government side what i want to talk about the organizations and companies within China that are working in space.

Because I think from the outside, it's easy to see this as an entire, like a single monolith. I just want to understand the relationship a bit, especially with regards to things like the space station. They have these plans for future missions to take humans to the moon. They've got the Chang'e missions, and then they have the space station missions alongside all of their satellite launches that they do every other day, basically, it seems like. The architecture there, what is the division between those various projects?

Does work on the space station delay human launches to the moon? Are they distinct entities? Could you give us kind of a high- level view of how we should think about these different tracks of work um no please demystify all of china for us yeah i can i can i can try to you know give some kind of insight here so people like to talk about cnsa right as some kind of insight here. So people like to talk about CNSA, right, as some kind of analog to NASA, but it really doesn't work like that. Think of CNSA as like the international kind of front office

for China's space activity. So they go and show up at different places and say, you know, look, we represent China. But they aren't, apart from maybe in some lunar exploration areas, robotically, they're not really that involved. So the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, CASC, that's like the main space contractor, but also kind of a bit like a space agency in its own right.

It has to follow what the the chinese commons party tells it to do um it's overseen by the chinese government and has to follow orders and so on but also has some kind of leeway itself it's state owned rather than you know clearly state run so that's the main space contractor it has eight I think it's about eight major institutes, and they have loads of subsidiaries which are dedicated to all kinds of aspects of the space program. So the Chinese space station modules, for example, they are being developed and manufactured by the China Academy of Space Technology. There's going to be lots of names which sound the same.

I think that's the one that annoys me most, because you have CASC and CAST, and that one annoys me. Yeah, this is CAST, which is like the fifth institute of CASC. And they're a major satellite maker, and they make spacecraft, they make the Shenzhos, they make all the major kind of things like this. So they made the Tianzhou cargo craft as well. I think what you referred to in the introduction to this was the –

a few days ago there was a call from the China Man Space Agency, or, yeah, so the China's human spaceflight agency, which is kind of overseen by the military to make things a little bit more complicated as well. So they put out a call for proposals for low-cost transportation for cargo to the space station. And that's open to everyone connected to Kask, which we just talked about, but also to other actors. And that would bring in KASIC, which is like a sister conglomerate to Kask. And they're like a defense contractor, a missile maker and so on. They have Kwaidjo solid rockets.

It also turns out that they're looking at, was it a Methalox rocket? So they've suddenly turned to liquids as well. They have plans to launch their own constellation of satellites. They have their own space plane in the works, which is not the same thing as we think was launched in September. That was what we think would be some kind of fixed-wing reusable spacecraft tested by CASC. But we really don't know because we didn't see anything and also that would bring in the this kind of nascent private or commercial sector which would include high space land space galactic energy and

so on so they would be able to get involved in this but at the moment at the moment they they wouldn't be able to do this in terms of capabilities and resources and expertise and so on. So that's not really possible. But it's notable that they've made this call and made it open because China's major space projects have been like cask only. They're the main space contractor. They develop and deliver all of these things.

So going back to late 2014, when they opened up the space sector to private capital, it was supposed to be like small satellites and small launches. private capital it was supposed to be like small satellites and small launches and the idea the thinking was that they could only compete for commercial contracts but this would suggest that going forward even though now it's probably not going to happen but going forwards there will be opportunities for these companies if they can prove themselves to be capable then they could get involved in some of the government side of things so anyway so where were we yes that was so cask is

kind of like the the main traditional space player and then you have these emerging companies so casick would be a major one because they are a huge state-owned enterprise, and they're in the Fortune 500 group. They have lots of resources and money. A smaller player would be the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They've been doing signed-in rockets, and they've been making Beidou satellites, some of the Beidou satellites which are in orbit. And they, so after this kind of opening of the space sector,

some of their employees have left to start up their own companies. So one example would be SpaceT, which is a satellite platform maker based in Hunan province. And they actually now are working on their own constellation of low-earth orbits radar remote sensing satellites so a bit yeah they released an image of of one of theirs was it last week or something yeah so they're kind of the chinese version following the footsteps of capella and um ice eye ic i don't know how to say that company. ICI, yeah. Which is just a few miles away from me, so I really shouldn't have been so slow. Yeah. So, yeah.

But there is actually, they have a launch company spin-off called CastSpace, or Jonker, I think. And they will be launching, they plan to launch a first rocket, I think, in September. So I think that was going to be a solid rocket and that would actually be a larger solid rocket than anything that casco or casek have got so far so that's come kind of a bit out of nowhere um so that's interesting yeah because the a lot of the launch companies i feel like the first launches certainly looked a lot to me i don't know the relationship here but it looked a lot of the launch companies i feel like the first launches certainly looked a lot to

me i don't know the relationship here but it looked a lot to me like they were using all these solid boosters that came from the government launch side um and then they declared these commercial launches even though i don't know if they were directly transferred but it kind of read like that to me like you know if the if the u.s wanted to say now we have commercial launchers and they just took a bunch of solid boosters in the Air Force arsenal and said launch some satellites. Well, they did that, right? Is that if they did that back then, right? So is that where we're at with these early launches from the commercial companies in China?

It's it's it's a bit like that. So, yeah, so I was talking about casking. So a lot of these companies will will have had employees from Cask leave to set up their own companies, sometimes with the help from people on the outside, maybe from finance and so on, like in the example of land space. So it's, yeah, so think about all this, this opening of the space sector is kind of that's affected China's supply chains in some regards. So they were thinking ahead, maybe. So basically, this is part of a national strategy. It's not just saying, oh, well, we should have private companies as well and let them go and do what they want. It's not just saying, oh, well, we should have private companies as well and let them go and do what they want.

It's a lot more calculated than that. They want to develop kind of their space sector and have a thriving space economy in China. So a lot of people think, oh, well, they're going to cheat on pricing and so on, and that's going to impact competition globally and so on. and that's going to impact competition globally and so on. But I see it more of, at the moment, certainly in terms of just developing the kind of access to space in China, fostering innovation, driving down costs, and just making a more healthy and robust space industry. So maybe the, for now at least, the international competition side is not such a large part of this. Yeah, and that's something that I think comes to mind a lot.

You know, people that listen to this show probably think, how much do these things interact with the industry that we already know? Because certainly from the US, you see a lot of people going over to India to fly on PSLV or something like that, getting good deals. There's been a lot of talk about how that is a major source of competition, especially in the small sat space. But then, yeah, in the Chinese launcher side, how many of their payloads could be international, how many of their payloads, be international, how many of their payloads, obviously we don't see many payloads or any payloads flying on US rockets today, and I would expect vice versa. But then there's that middle ground, right? Through European companies, could they go over there? And they certainly, you know, can they

have access, more access to the market than a US company does these days. So you expect it more to be an inward looking thing for the first i don't know first couple years before they start looking outward for payloads um yeah they have they have been open to international payloads but of course you have ita which makes you know transferring anything that you want to launch to china for a launch very difficult so sata logic which is based in argentina they've been able to do this. So it's possible. And there are actors developing like ITAR-free technologies, so-called ITAR-free, to kind of get around this kind of barrier.

But that's still a big barrier. Actually, Kask, they offer kind of turnkey solutions. So they'll go to a country with a delegation and they'll offer launch services, they'll make the satellites, they'll do all the ground segment stuff, training, everything. So they kind of get around ITAR by doing that as well and being part of the kind of Chinese diplomacy things as well. Yeah, so just going back to what you asked before with the, you know, how close are these things? It can be hard to say.

And I don't want to make it sound too monolithic because I said it's part of a national strategy. But within that, you have companies which clearly have their own aims and they want to do things. But they would still be overseen by a government group called sast and which would you know I have to approve first they're being set up and then also approve transfer technology so as you said it looked like you know this was like contractor providing certain things to a launch company and then launching it.

But you can kind of see, at least ostensibly from the updates which were coming in the months and years before these launches, that these companies were developing apparently their own rocket motors and so on, and doing all these different tests. So they would have had technology and expertise transferred from Cask, for example, but then they're also doing their own work. But then if you look at some of the photos and some of the kind of the dimensions of a rocket, for example, so you'll find rocket diameters, which are very similar to dong fong missiles and existing long march rockets so you know they're borrowing a lot of a lot of things from some of these existing launchers but then trying to develop their own supply chains and find innovations where they can

and then also go go their own way so i think think one thing to watch this year will be Landspace will be making probably the first Methalox orbital launch attempt, which is going to be quite a big thing. So I think there was an IAC in like 2015 or something like this where there was like China saying, look, we've got this Methalox rocket. And now you're seeing, you know, these companies developing their own Methalox, sorry, Methalox engine. So then there's companies developing Methalox engines. So, you know, we know where this kind of technology is coming from, but they've been kind of given some measure of freedom to go and work on those themselves. So it's kind of, yeah. And the other thing would be to look at the funding.

There's been lots of funding around, particularly last year, lots of money going into these Chinese companies on the satellite side and the launcher side. and the launcher side. But if you look at these, sometimes they will be kind of investment funds which are linked to say the Chinese Academy of Sciences or something to a nationally controlled kind of financial group or something like this. So yeah, it's not like the US investment environment or anything like that. And the space sector is still very new, and it's needing a lot of support. And also getting support from provincial governments and things like this. So this is, yeah, it's a very complex kind of set of dynamics. Yeah, especially on the front that you're talking about there with the funding. We've seen funding rounds recently for the Jilin-1 constellation. I think SpaceD got some funding recently as well on the satellite side. So that's the big mystery to me is like, how should I look at these private companies that are raising a bunch of money, but the money's coming from state-controlled funds? Do they have the kind of freedom to expand their capabilities,

or is it something that is very directed from a top-down kind of mechanism? Yeah, it's hard to say, and you have to go case by case. And there have been, I honestly, I just cannot remember, Chang'e 5 has fried my brain, and there's just so many companies going on. But there has been, like, notably funding rounds where it's like, oh, hold on. That's like the Chinese branch of a US investment fund and things like this. So it's certainly not all nationally driven. But that's something that you have to be aware of that it's not too far away from

the from the chinese defense sector yeah at any point so and certainly to use a recent news story uh even jack ma is not exactly uh you know out there living it up right now so even when you have tens of billions of dollars to your name who knows what can go on so i assume you know the companies probably aren't they probably can't wheel and deal like we're seeing down in boca chica as we mentioned earlier that's not something that we're going to see happening in china anytime soon yeah yeah that's a good point and also as you mentioned jack mart then the other thing is that when if if or when are those companies like Alibaba Group and Tencent going to get involved as well? I think Tencent would be investing in Satellogic.

And then there's also car companies which are getting involved in, I think they're looking at GNSS enhancement satellites in low-earth orbit, things like that, to help with driverless cars, things like this. So there's still a lot of potential for outside investments, outside from these actors and from the government, which we talked about. But then also at the moment, it seems that Xi Jinping is very much trying to rein in the private sector and get more state control. So there's lots of different kind of dynamics again. And it's, yeah. So you're saying you'll be very busy

this year is what you're saying yeah i dread to think to be honest but yeah it's a good it's all it's all very interesting um and i just have to make sure that i get some breaks in there yeah for sure so yeah i ended up not having so much of a summer holiday. And then by the end of, like, Channel 5, it was like, oh, my God. So, yeah, it's going to be a very interesting year. The CASC is aiming for over 40 launches. CASIC will be launching lots of Quadro satellites. There's other spin-off launches as well. But then the private sector, there's going to be lots of hop tests and orbital launch attempts.

So, yeah, it's going to be the busiest year by far, it seems. So where should people, if they're not already following you, where should they go to keep up with what you're working on, what you're writing and all that? You can go to AJ underscore FI on Twitter. I write for Space News most regularly as a correspondent. I also contribute to different places such as EyeTrip, the Spectrum, Sky and Telescope, National Geographic and other places. Twitter's where I dump everything that's kind of going on or that's kind of, you know, spill over as well. That's why you were one of my picks on Off Nominal not too long ago. Your Twitter feed is literally, if I'm like, I wonder what's going on in China, AJ underscore Fi. That's where I'm headed.

Wonderful. Thanks, man. Well, thank you so much for hanging out. I feel like I've demystified some of the things that I've been wondering, so I'm sure everyone out there listening as well has. So thanks again, and hopefully it's not so long before I talk to you the next time. Yeah, sounds good. Thanks again to Andrew for coming on the show. It is always a pleasure talking with him, and it helps me understand a lot of what's going on in the Chinese space world. So if you appreciated this show, head over to Twitter at AJ underscore FI.

Let him know that he is the best as he is and until next time that is all i've got for you today head over to managingcutoff.com slash support once again if you want to get that headlines feed and help support the show and if you've got any questions or thoughts hit me up anthony at managingcutoff.com or on twitter at we have miko and next time, I'll talk to you soon.