At the 2024 National People's Congress and the National People's Congress, "new quality productivity" was written into the 2024 government work report and listed as the first of the top ten tasks in 2024. ”
As an important part of the new quality of productivity, commercial aerospace is waiting to spread its wings.
In 2023, China completed a total of 67 rocket launches, second only to the United States, accounting for 30% of the world's rocket launches.
At present, a number of commercial aerospace companies have emerged in China. But what are the problems of domestic commercial space companies? Where is the gap between us and foreign countries? How can we catch up with the United States? How long will it take?
On the above questions, we interviewed Yang Yiqiang, chairman and president of Zhongke Aerospace and chief designer of the Lijian series of rockets.
As the first mixed-ownership commercial aerospace company in China, the Lijian 1 carrier rocket has launched 37 satellites with a total payload of 3.5 tons, and the number and weight of satellites launched by the Lijian 1 Yao-2 carrier rocket exceeded the total number and total weight of all domestic commercial aerospace enterprises in the previous eight times.
Yang Yiqiang said that at present, in the world, only China can compete with the United States. But we still have a big gap with the U.S., a gap of about 30 years in terms of recycling.
The following is a condensed version of the interview, which is very interesting and I hope you will be inspired.
Narrator: Yang Yiqiang, Chairman and President of Zhongke Aerospace, Chief Designer of Lijian Series Rockets
Editor: Mi Liping
Source: Zhenghe Island (ID: zhenghedao)
First, compared with the United States, China's commercial space industry is still far away
Q: In the field of commercial aerospace, the first thing we can think of is Musk's SpaceX, which can be said to be at the forefront of the world at present.
Yang Yiqiang: In the field of commercial aerospace, China and the United States are relatively big players.
U.S. commercial space dating back to 1962, when the U.S. carried a privately owned satellite on its own rocket. In the 70s of the last century, a military payload was loaded on a civilian satellite.
In terms of laws and regulations, the United States has had hundreds of revisions in aerospace since the 60s of the last century, and the real entry into the commercial aerospace era began in the 80s of the last century.
After the development of the American space shuttle to a certain extent, it began to have a low-cost orbit program, and in the launch market of orbit and low orbit, in addition to the traditional Boeing and other large companies, it began to open up to other private enterprises, so it has been developing for a long time.
In the satellite industry, Musk is not the earliest to do Starlink, the early Iridium was technically successful, but it is difficult to put it into the market in terms of operating model and cost.
Looking at it now, it can be said that SpaceX is the most representative company in the commercial space field in the United States, and there are several representative things.
First, the reusability of the Falcon 9 greatly reduces the cost. In the 90s of the last century, the price of rockets in China was one-third of that of the United States, so we had that golden period, and launched a lot of satellites in the international market, and we launched 14 Iridium, and many satellites from Australia and Europe. But now, Musk's price is a third of ours, and he has brought the cost of a kilogram of mass into orbit to 3000-5000 dollars.
Second, due to the reduction of the cost of orbiting the satellite itself, the cost of low-orbit Internet satellites has also dropped significantly, and now Starlink has exceeded 5,800, and the quantitative change has contributed to a qualitative change, and it has about 2.4 million users.
Third, SpaceX has also developed Starship, which, if successful, could reduce the cost of returning to orbit to a few hundred dollars, and even have a huge impact on the aviation industry. In the future, we will not have to take Boeing 767 or 777 to the United States, and we will arrive in less than an hour by Starship. And it's reusable in both primary and secondary levels, which will change the overall ecology in this area.
There is a generation gap between us and the United States in terms of high-power, high-thrust engines and recycling. In the past, when there was no Musk, the traditional space distance between us and the United States was about 15 years, and the performance of our rockets at that time was not as good as that of the United States, but there was an advantage in price.
Musk's influence on the industry is worldwide, and the impact on the satellite market and the communication market is great. ESA's Arian 6 rocket has been delayed, Japan's H3 rocket has just flown but is not reusable, the cost is much higher than Musk's, and the new rocket from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) is also struggling.
In the world, China can compete with the United States.
Now the gap between us and the United States is mainly in 4 aspects, the first is recycling, Musk's rocket has been reused hundreds of times since 2015. The second is the density of launches, two days before Musk launched 3 rockets in 24 hours, a total of 96 launches in 2023, and a total of 67 times for all Chinese companies.
In addition, in terms of the mass of orbit, Musk is more than 1,000 tons, and we only have more than 100 tons, less than one-tenth. There is also the use of satellite Internet and low-orbit Internet, and his satellite Internet market has entered 67 countries, with more than 2 million users and revenue of nearly 4 billion US dollars.
Our commercial aerospace industry has been developing for 10 years, and now it has just passed the initial stage, showing some leading enterprises, such as Zhongke Aerospace, which has been able to provide launch services with a carrying capacity of more than one ton since the first rocket.
In terms of reusability, several commercial aerospace companies have conducted some confirmatory trials, but there is still a long way to go before true recycling.
In terms of satellites, we have about 300 commercial satellites in the sky, mainly remote sensing satellites, and have begun to provide some remote sensing services, such as agriculture and land census.
In terms of low-orbit Internet, China has now established a star network company, and Shanghai Yuanxin has also begun to develop a thousand sail constellation, which should be said to initially form a low-orbit Internet service capacity in the next two years.
Now it is at such a stage, it is definitely the second in the world, but compared with the United States, a space power, there is still a relatively large distance.
Q: So how long will it take for us to catch up with the United States in the future?
Yang Yiqiang: I think Chinese are very hardworking, no matter what industry we are in, as long as we want to do it, I believe we can do it well.
We are now 30 years behind the rocket recovery of the United States, but we will not take 30 years to catch up with it, it is possible that we will catch up with the United States in a shorter time, let's say 5-10 years.
In terms of satellites, we already have leading enterprises to show up, there is unimaginable industrialization of satellites, low cost has been initially realized, with the Hainan commercial space launch site, and we and Blue Arrow such enterprises with proprietary launch stations were born, I think one day we will definitely be able to catch up. In my own opinion, we can catch up with them with 10 years of hard work.
2. In the era of great space, how does China catch up with Musk?
Q: What are the problems in the development of domestic commercial aerospace?
Yang Yiqiang: At present, there are two problems in domestic commercial aerospace, one is involution, and the other is inflated.
There is low-price competition among domestic enterprises, and some rockets do not rely on innovation but rely on advertising to prove that I will make rockets, claiming that the ability is very high, but the actual ability is very poor.
Speaking realistically, it is very good that the capabilities of our Long March rockets can be compared with those of the United States, and it is good that they can achieve 80 percent of their capabilities, and it is good that domestic commercial rocket companies can achieve 70 or 80 percent of the Long March rockets.
At present, the domestic commercial rocket industry is in the stage of pulling investment, and this process will definitely go, but in the future, a number of will be eliminated, and through the integration of the market and administration, a high-quality enterprise with international competitiveness will be formed.
On the one hand, the superiors and authorities are sober, on the other hand, the customer is sober, and the customer will not put his own satellite on an unreliable or simply incapable rocket, but to see who can provide high-quality and cost-effective services.
There are two criteria for measuring a rocket enterprise, one is how large the actual capacity of the launch vehicle is, which reflects the technical level, and the other is what the sales price is, which reflects the level of operation and management.
Q: In terms of technology, what challenges do we still have, and how to close the gap with the United States and Musk?
Yang Yiqiang: In terms of technology, Musk's rocket can be reused 19 times, and it was successfully recycled on the first flight in 2015.
The main thing about the recycling technology is how many times the recycling can be achieved, because the recycling itself should reduce its carrying capacity, and at the same time, the corresponding recovery devices and recycling equipment should be increased, and there will be a lot of maintenance work after recycling. If it's too little, it doesn't make sense.
At that time, I judged that 10 times was a line, and after 10 times he made money, but 10 times he didn't make money, we thought he couldn't do it 10 times, 3-5 times it was okay, but in the end he did it 19 times, it should be said that it completely subverted something of our tradition.
And Musk proposed agile systems engineering, which iterates quickly, and exposes problems by constantly failing and constantly flying, which is not easy to understand in the past.
Musk said, you haven't failed, you don't know where the boundary of this problem is, Musk is touching this boundary line. This is a big difference in our philosophy.
We pursue success in this kind of big project, and we will spend 10 years, or even 20 years, with a lot of money to conduct ground trials, and finally ensure that it will be successful the first time.
Q: Are these two ways Musk thinking differently from us, or are there some other considerations?
Yang Yiqiang: I think it's the power of business. When we talk about commercial aerospace now, why are there no commercial ships and commercial aviation, because commercial use used to be for military purposes, or national key projects, such as lunar exploration, Beidou, and 921 manned spaceflight, we are not for profit, but for success.
In fact, in the early days of aerospace, we were making missiles, and we were engaged in strategic nuclear weapons, all of which put success and security first, so whether it was Europe, Japan, or the former Soviet Union, a conservative system was formed under the premise of this security and success, and the design redundancy was very large, and failure could not be tolerated.
Musk's purpose at the beginning was to launch, and his early aim was for the United States to enter the space program and low-orbit launch market at low cost, and he did not have these rules and regulations, that is, cheap, reliable, and low-cost, so he walked out of a road suitable for low cost and business.
He is now ready to reduce the cost to about $1 million, which was unthinkable in the past, in the past, we used to make satellites in billions, and there are almost no satellites less than 100 million.
Q: What should we do to reduce costs?
Yang Yiqiang: If we want to reduce costs now, the first thing is to change the design concept, design mode and production mode, the cost of a rocket or satellite, its design scheme determines more than 70%, it is already very bulky, there is redundancy everywhere, then use the best devices to do, it must be very expensive.
In the past, our satellites in the sky, especially high-orbit satellites, cost billions of yuan, and the working life was 25 years, so we used space-grade devices, and a memory was imported and required millions of dollars.
But Musk has not made a big thing, don't confuse the concept, he has been doing it for 5 years, and now more than 200 satellites have been broken in the sky, but he doesn't care, although the life is short, but it is cheap and the project is simple.
So we can't compare the most precious things, I think this is relative, not absolute.
Question: At present, the state attaches great importance to commercial aerospace, and has also put forward new quality productive forces, with some policy support. What is the role of government in this area?
Yang Yiqiang: From the perspective of the national competent department, a series of policies have been introduced, and new quality productivity has also been put forward at the Central Economic Work Conference, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense have put forward a lot of ideas and opinions. In addition, the Ministry of Finance and the Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense have established a national military-civilian integration industry fund.
In particular, the local government, Shanghai's G60 has put forward the plan of "one body, two wings", as well as "Shanghai Star" and "Shanghai Arrow". On January 19, Beijing announced the Beijing Action Plan for Accelerating the Innovation and Development of Commercial Aerospace, proposing a two-step approach, with the first five years to solve the problem of recovery at an altitude of 100 kilometers, and the second five years to truly realize the reuse of rockets. In addition, Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shandong have all introduced corresponding policies.
I think the core is the new national system, and the new national system has several characteristics: first, its demand is the market, not what infrastructure the country wants to build. Second, the main body of entrepreneurship is the enterprise. Third, the cooperation model is done by enterprises, the government, and capital, and the government guides it, so the government has a fund, or the government gives financial subsidies to the project.
If there is no government participation, it is a pure market behavior, but the government provides an emerging industry in it, and it must give support in many policies, such as financial support, low taxes, talent flow, intellectual property rights, etc.
In the 80s of the last century, the United States constantly revised its commercial space policy in terms of policy.
The United States also awarded Musk a contract after three consecutive failures of the Falcon 1, and later his fourth shot was successful, and he was awarded the Dragon spacecraft project, $1.6 billion. Without the support of these two projects, Musk would have gone bankrupt long ago.
The United States has also given Musk huge support in terms of intellectual property rights and talents, including his launch station, a dollar rent, because the United States regulations cannot be free.
To a certain extent, the United States is also a new type of national system, but our name is different, and without the support of the US government, Musk would not be able to go today. The same is true in China, we must develop a new type of national system and give full play to the role of the market, enterprises, capital, and government.
3. Without spaceflight, we will not be able to live in the future
Q: As the first mixed-ownership aerospace enterprise in China, what are the characteristics of Zhongke Aerospace?
Yang Yiqiang: Zhongke Aerospace was incubated from the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the cradle and birthplace of China's aerospace technology and launch vehicles, from 1958, the "581" working group was established, to 1967, China's first liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine, China's first recovered sounding rocket, the main technical theories of launch vehicle and missile design are in the Institute of Mechanics.
We are characterized by the political and business guarantee and risk management and control of state-owned capital and the national team, as well as the flexible mechanism of private enterprises.
Q: Compared with other domestic competitors, what are the unique advantages of Zhongke Aerospace?
Yang Yiqiang: We have the most innovation, and we have not copied any technology in the system, from the overall scheme of the rocket, the design concept to the production, it is a new route.
In 2022, we made the first flight of Lijian No. 1 and won the top ten scientific and technological advances in 2022, which was evaluated by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Science and Technology News, and was the first case among rocket companies, all thanks to our innovation.
The first flight of Lijian 1 was successful
The design of the rocket we made breaks the traditional way of thinking in the industry, and realizes the integrated product design mode (IPD) for a single machine, which greatly improves the design efficiency.
During the epidemic, we made a rocket with a carrying capacity comparable to that of the European Vega, which spent nearly 10 billion yuan and took 10 years, and we only spent 600 million yuan, which took more than 3 years.
In terms of production, we take the lead in adopting the pulsating production mode and completely use the production line to produce. We have also broken the traditional closed supply chain and built our own rocket supply chain for the society.
In terms of technology, we have 13 key technologies that are used for the first time in China.
Q: In addition to rockets and satellites, I see that Zhongke Aerospace also does space tourism, when will we be able to go to space?
Yang Yiqiang: Our business is divided into three segments.
The first sector is space transportation, and at present, Lijian 1 has entered the normal launch, and has launched 37 satellites with a weight of 3.5 tons. The number and weight of Lijian-1 Yao-2 launches exceeded the total number and weight of satellites of all commercial space companies in the previous eight times.
We have 4-5 more launches this year, and we will send hundreds of satellites into space. Moreover, we have strong competitiveness, and the reliability of the rocket has also been verified and assessed.
Lijian 2 will make its first flight from June to August next year, and the first flight will be a low-cost cargo spacecraft developed by the Institute of Microsatellite Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which will be of great significance. We're also going to have flat-panel low-orbit internet satellites, as well as satellites from other companies. Hopefully, we can become the new main rocket after the Long March 8 premium rocket.
The second sector is space tourism, and the first thing to solve is the problem of rocket recycling, because the direct recovery of rockets is costly, and the loss of carrying capacity is also huge.
At present, many companies in China are doing meaningful experiments and work, but we are still about 30 years away from true rocket recycling.
At present, the recovery of all our rockets is hardly more than one kilometer, the speed of the recovery test is 10 meters per second, and the scale of the rocket is 10-100 tons, which is far from the real scale of more than 600 tons, the altitude of 100 kilometers, and the speed of two or three kilometers per second, so we consider using a suborbital way to first break through the recovery technology, and finally let our Lijian 2 or future liquid rockets have the ability to recover.
We have formulated a five-year action plan for Zhongke Aerospace's recyclable technology, hoping to achieve 100 kilometers of recycling within five years.
There are many key technologies behind this, and a large number of ground tests are required to verify the technical difficulties of rockets such as large load, high heat resistance, and fast response.
On the other hand, we will also create a microgravity environment through recycling, and now many of our drugs, biological synthesis, space breeding, and some precious metal synthesis require a microgravity environment.
Our country's sounding rockets used to be solid, all disposable, and they were left in the air for no more than 20 seconds. With multiple starts, we can provide a microgravity environment of about 600 seconds to carry these scientific experiments. At the same time, our rockets can be recycled, and these experiments can be recycled.
Under the premise of high safety and high reliability, we will start manned space tourism again. We plan to start providing space tourism services in 2028, and we will conduct a very many suborbital experiments before that, and we will develop a near-space space science experiment platform, which can mainly carry out various explorations and experiments at an altitude of 100-500 kilometers.
The third sector, we will also do some shuttle UAVs, on the one hand to meet the needs of the market, on the other hand, the low-altitude economy, now general UAVs are a huge market in our country, we already have products out in this regard, and they are doing very well.
Q: In the next 10 years, what direction will China's commercial space development take?
Yang Yiqiang: In terms of the structure of the aerospace field, in the first decade, we call it the 3.0 era, and our rockets can be reused and the cost can be reduced to be competitive with the United States.
The rocket reaches multiplexing, and our launch efficiency and cost are on par with those of the United States, and there are even advantages, which is the first goal of the decade.
The second goal, we have 30,000 satellites in the sky, which can further integrate the core network and the space-based network, send the terminal to each individual, or the Internet of vehicles, and then provide services.
At the same time, space-based satellites can enhance navigation and provide the most basic centimeter-level positioning services for markets such as autonomous driving.
In addition, we now have a lot of satellites in the sky, and there will be more in the future, and it is possible to scan the earth every few minutes to provide some more commercially valuable services.
The future market must be combined with individuals and media, for example, if you want to know if your car is parked there, now you may have to ask a friend to go downstairs to see if it is there, and in the future you can turn on your mobile phone and use the satellite to see it, and it is very cheap.
Now the map can only display red and orange when there is a traffic jam, and in the future, satellites can provide a lot of videos, photos, people flow, etc., and it may be dynamic when switched. In the future, the application scenarios and market potential in this area are very large.
In the past, aerospace was all military aerospace or national aerospace, not to mention the future, now our lives are inseparable from aerospace, in the future we will rely more on aerospace, without aerospace will not be able to live.
Typography | Shen Wangwang
编辑 | 小米 轮值主编 | 夏昆