Oh look, yet another Starship clone has popped up in China

Summary

And then, on Friday, the state-aligned China.com reported that a company called “Beijing Leading Rocket Technology” took things a step further. It has named its vehicle “Starship-1,” adding that the new rocket will have enhancements from AI and is billed as a “fully reusable AI rocket.” It’s worth noting that, unlike the government’s Long March 9 vehicle, most of the Chinese startups are starting with smaller versions of the Starship vehicle, which makes sense because it is completely impractical for a startup to build a super heavy lift rocket out of the gate. Success may not be in the cards for most Many of these launch startups will not grow past the PowerPoint phase, of course. The US commercial launch industry went through a similarly euphoric phase about a decade ago, albeit with a far greater diversity in rocket design, when there were dozens of startups. Only a small handful eventually reached orbit. Although the mechanics of the fundraising market in China are different from capital markets in the United States, investors are nonetheless driven by the prospect of growth and long-term profits. For this reason it makes sense to emulate the most successful US launch company, SpaceX, and its forward-looking technology, Starship. Chinese startups are telling investors they can become the SpaceX of China, and the most obvious way to do this is to build similar rockets. But it is anyone’s guess whether the Chinese startups can get a Starship working. SpaceX is still in the development phase of its super heavy lift rocket, after all. And whether Starship’s design will scale downward remains an open question. Building a smaller Starship is not necessarily easier than a large one, and the design may not work below a certain threshold. For example, when US-based Stoke Space sought to tackle full and rapid reuse with a smaller launch vehicle, the company opted for a novel upper stage and heat shield that is completely different from SpaceX’s pathway for a super heavy l...