FPI / November 8, 2024

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

If they are still around, some aging engineers from France’s former Aerospatiale space company and the Dassault aircraft company should be proud: Their innovative Hermes small space plane program that was cancelled in 1992, could soon fly, but as a reusable Chinese space cargo transport.

During an Oct. 29, 2024 press conference the China Manned Space Engineering Office revealed that the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) Haolong space plane would be developed as a reusable cargo transport for China’s Space Station. / China Manned Space Agency

During an Oct. 29 press conference, the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) revealed two concepts that had won a competition to provide low-cost cargo transport to China’s Tiangong space station.

One of them was by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC), famous for designing some of China’s best fighter aircraft like the 5th generation J-20 fighter, a new unmanned space plane called the Haolong (a variation on Dragon).

Also on Oct. 29, Chinese state media Global Times reported that:

“[T]he Haolong is a winged, reusable commercial space vehicle that can further reduce the cost of cargo transportation to the space station, according to the maker. It has large capacities for cargo transport both to and from the space station, excellent flight environment and efficient support for operations. It can further reduce space station cargo transport cost by repeated use.”

Global Times continued:

“The Haolong cargo spacecraft will lead and promote further breakthroughs and developments in China’s reusable space-Earth transportation technologies, enabling China’s steps to explore space to go steadier and farther, while making new contributions to the well-being of humanity.”

This is usual Chinese propaganda; Haolong is the latest space plane developed by CAC in an effort that dates back to the late 1980s, to develop space planes to meet the military requirements of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Briefly in the 1980s China aircraft industry championed building large Space Shuttle like space planes to compete with the United States 110-ton Rockwell-Boeing Space Shuttle, but China’s rocket engineers overruled this in favor of much more efficient and smaller manned spacecraft like the Shenzhou, derived from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

But during the early 1980s as CAC explored co-producing the French Dassault Mirage-2000 fighter aircraft, which came to nought, CAC was also allowed access to Dassault’s work to develop the Hermes small space plane.

Hermes would have been a 21-ton 3-man space plane that would help France and the European Space Agency to reduce their reliance on the U.S. Space Shuttle for manned space access, but by 1992, excessive cost and declining performance forced its cancellation. ….

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  The French Haolong space plane with Chinese Communist characteristics, WorldTribune.com