China’s New Spaceship Is a Blatant Ripoff of SpaceX’s Starship

AliExpress Starship

China has showed off a concept for its upcoming Long March 9, a ultra heavy-lift reusable rocket designed to deliver the first Chinese astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the 2030s.

And as Ars Technica reports, its design is an unabashed ripoff of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, also currently in development. A slide from a presentation at a recent airshow in China shows off a strikingly familiar design for a “two-stage, fully reusable configuration” — right down to aerodynamic flaps that aid the rocket during its descent back to the surface.

The rocket will purportedly feature 30 methane and liquid oxygen fuel rocket engines, not unlike the 33 Raptor engines that power Starship’s first stage and which rely on the same mix of fuel.

While the country isn’t planning to fly the massive, 374-feet-tall rocket until 2033, the design highlights just how much of a headstart and influence SpaceX has in the current race to develop reusable rockets.

Sincerest Flattery

As Ars points out, it’s far from the first time we’ve seen China’s space program — as well as Chinese space startups — rip off SpaceX’s designs. In 2021, a promotional video by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology clearly aped the Elon Musk-led company’s early plans for an end-to-end transportation system that made use of Starship, which was known as “BFR” at the time.

Another suspicious Starship lookalike design for a two-stage methane-liquid launch system surfaced in 2022 as well.

Just last week, Chinese space launch company Cosmoleap released a promo video that copied SpaceX’s plans for a tower with “chopstick” arms designed to catch the first stage of a reusable rocket, as spotted by SpaceNews. SpaceX recently pulled off the feat for the first time during its fifth Starship test flight last month.

A different Chinese space startup, called Space Pioneer, also announced plans for a rocket late last year that closely resembles SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9.

In short, is this all just a sign that China has run out of ideas and is blindly following its international competition? Or is it a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

Regardless, it’s a strategy. China is still hoping to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030 using its Long March 10 rocket, a predecessor to its Starship-like Long March 9 rocket.

That’s several years after NASA’s first scheduled crewed landing, which is tentatively scheduled for late 2026.

But to establish a more permanent presence on the Moon, a reusable rocket would give either country a massive leg up, whether it’s a genuine Starship or a lookalike.

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