In recent years, relying on hard work and continuous progress in science and technology, China has become a global space power, and a total of 55 rocket launch missions have been carried out in 2021, which is worthy of being the world's first. After entering 2022, China has also released relevant launch missions, at least 40 launch missions will be carried out this year, and with the end of 6 major launch missions, the Chinese space station will also be fully completed. For China's aerospace, 2022 is still a year worth looking forward to, but just when China has not yet acted, Musk has launched 2 arrows and 154 stars, one step ahead of China to start the New Year launch mission.
As a private space company, Musk's SpaceX has been excellent, not only mastering advanced recyclable rocket technology, but also forming the ambitious "Starlink Project". After entering 2022, it can't wait to launch 49 Starlink satellites to add bricks to the plan, which is SpaceX's new year's first mission. Its second launch was for 105 satellites launched for customers in various countries, and both launch missions were completed by the recoverable rocket Falcon-9.
Thanks to recyclable technology, the company can carry out multiple launch missions in a short period of time, and in addition to the speed, its launch cost is also frighteningly low. According to Musk, the Falcon-9 charges $62 million per launch, and the profit can reach more than 30%. In this way, the cost of a single launch is only $43.4 million, but because it is a recyclable rocket, the cost will be lower, and it can now reuse the first stage of the booster and fairing, while Musk said that the cost of the first stage of the rocket is 70%, so its cost should be thrown away by $30.4 million.
Subtracting the cost of the fairing of $6 million, it can be concluded that the single cost of the Falcon-9 is $7 million, plus the cost of each recovery, repair, and inspection, and the cost of a single launch is only about $10 million. This launch cost is extremely low for any country, if the future rocket launch can be reduced to this cost price, then China's space launch mission will be rapidly advanced. And this is the importance of recyclable rocket technology, in recent years, China is also studying related technologies and has made breakthroughs, I believe that the future launch cost will be able to come down!
With 2 rockets and 154 satellites, SpaceX's first launch has made many people worry about whether China's aerospace can continue to lead in 2022. Xiaobian believes that there is no need to worry about this, because no matter how powerful it is, it is just a private company, and it is not comparable to a national-level space mission. What china really should do is not to compare the number of launches, but to constantly break through itself, become a real space power, and seize the opportunity for the future space age, and SpaceX is essentially just a commercial company.
(Text/Xi Le)