The history of Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle plan

[squallgzy]

The beginning of Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle plan is very earlier, much earlier than X-37B. It originted from a paper of Qian'xuesen(known as Tsien Hsue-shen, one founder of JPL, persecutd by McCarthyism). In this paper, he descirbed a boost-glide trajectory called Qian'xuesen trajectory. When he returned to China because of McCarthyism, he bulid a team to research aerocraft based on Qian'xuesen trajectory. Due to the weak Industrial Capacity at that time, the plan of Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle was very slow, but ererything changed since 1990s.

Nowday, there are two competitors for Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle plan, 611th institude of AVIC and 10th institude of CASC. The scheme of 10th institude is like CAV of Lockheed, a highly maneuverable warhead based on boost-glide trajectory. The scheme of 611th is more similar to a space plane based on boost-glide trajectory. Because of the experience of desining aerodynamic architecture, the scheme of 611th runs more smoothly, and there was a successful test several years ago.

[C.Puffs]

Meh. 1234567

[squallgzy]

I hate calling it "copycat" personally. You can read the paper of Qianxuesen if you don't understand.

[West Texican]

The US Air Force Dyna-Soar project was inspired by Qian Xuesen's research and the Space Shuttle also benefited. No copy cat here, he was a brilliant engineer.

[picanha the second]

Well the first ones proposing this concept where Eugen Sänger and Irene Bredt with their http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel.

And this shows that the execution is the biggest problem. There you have to excel. Reproducing and using concepts or new scientific findings is not really copying. You copy when you don't use your own way to solve problems and achieve results and instead use detail solutions from others.