LM-9 may use RD-180 clone

[xenomorph555]

As you may or may not know the Long March 9 rocket will be about 3000 tonnes and will need 8 400 tonne thrust keralox engines. People have wondered for years about what these engines may be...

Strangely enough a few months ago the Chinese announced they might purchase the plans/designs for some Russian engines from the Russian agency. Included in this list just so happened to be the RD-180, so how much thrust does the RD-180 have, about 420...

Will have to wait and see how this develops...

[J.Random]

As I remember, 180 is basically a halved 170. Maybe they may try to reverse engineer 170 through 180?

[xenomorph555]

As I remember, 180 is basically a halved 170. Maybe they may try to reverse engineer 170 through 180?

Maybe, the 170's a good engine that could make China's fleet much more efficient (and powerful).

The LM-9 would require about 5 170's. It would probably take longer to recreate the 170 though.

The original engine plan was have 8 600 tonne thrust engines, 2 300 thrust engines combined.

[Idobox]

The RD 180 is an excellent engine, but from what I understand, the main difficulty building them is with metallurgy.

They use a LOx rich mix in the turbopump, which gives them their great performances, and that tends to set the metal parts on fire, which is bad. The Chinese will not just need the plans, they will need to be taught the metallurgy too.

[xenomorph555]

The RD 180 is an excellent engine, but from what I understand, the main difficulty building them is with metallurgy.

They use a LOx rich mix in the turbopump, which gives them their great performances, and that tends to set the metal parts on fire, which is bad. The Chinese will not just need the plans, they will need to be taught the metallurgy too.

Already covered, the Chinese have spent the past 15 years replicating the RD-120 (YF-100) for the the CZ-5 rocket family. The RD-120 is closed cycle/staged as well so they should have plenty of experience with LOX rich cycles.