China's Tengyun project: Aiming for space with a 60km cannon

Chinese scientists have been working on the Tengyun project since 2016, but they are now nearing a breakthrough, according to the South China Morning Post. The 60-kilometre-long cannon is designed to launch into space projectiles the size of a Boeing 737.

Just a few days ago, scientific development in the context of space exploration reached an essential milestone – SpaceX launched the largest object to date into space, the Starship rocket, which, despite not landing, brought a series of benefits and demonstrated significant progress in the development of space travel as a whole.

Now, China is reporting another breakthrough in the development of technology used in space. The Tengyun project aims to reduce the costs of sending cargo and people into space. After years of work, engineers have been able to present specific solutions and claim they know how to overcome the difficulties that block the path to creating this space technology.

The scale of this project, which has been developing since 2016, is truly huge. Scientists from China aim to launch hypersonic ships into space in the near future, measuring about 40 metres in length. To illustrate the scale of this undertaking, it's worth noting that these dimensions are similar to the popular passenger plane, Boeing 737-800. The mass of the Chinese projectile is to be just under 50,000 kilograms.

During flight, the ship is to activate an engine that will allow it to reach space, while its speed upon leaving the cannon is to be twice the speed of sound. However, that is not everything, as the biggest breakthrough – literally – is to be the cannon that will handle such large projectiles.

The Chinese plan to use an electromagnetic cannon and the first step in this direction has already been taken. Today, scientists have at their disposal a 2-kilometre-long vacuum tunnel, where so far, tests have been conducted on a magnetic rail. Heavy objects can be accelerated to speeds of up to 1,000 km/h in it. However, as it turns out – such a tunnel may not be long enough, so China plans to build a cannon as long as 60 kilometres. Then it will be possible to accelerate tested objects to speeds of 5,000 km/h.

It should be noted that the project discussed by the Chinese may be the first of its kind in the world when it is developed. Technology that would allow similar methods (using an electromagnetic cannon) to launch objects into space is also of interest to other countries, as evidenced by the work carried out by the USA in the 1990s. However, they were halted due to lack of funding.