{"id":588033,"date":"2026-07-16T03:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/588033\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T03:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:54:19","slug":"why-the-us-china-space-race-could-come-down-to-a-thin-metal-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/588033\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the US-China space race could come down to a thin metal cap"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the high\u2011stakes space race<\/a> between the United States and China, the decisive advantage could come down to a metal cap that few outside the industry have ever heard of: the propellant tank dome.<\/p>\n

An ellipsoidal bulkhead several metres wide but only millimetres thick, the dome must withstand extreme internal pressures, vibration and shock. The rounded, capsule-like end cap is also very difficult to mass-produce.<\/p>\n

Whichever country can make these components faster, cheaper and more reliably will have an advantage in building the large fleets of reusable rockets needed for the future space economy.<\/p>\n

The race for the moon\u2019s south pole: can China beat Nasa\u2019s 2028 deadline?<\/p>\n

Now, China is signalling that it may have found not one but two ways to break the bottleneck.<\/p>\n

The flight showcased a dome made with a welding method benchmarked against SpaceX<\/a>\u2019s Falcon series but potentially faster off the production line.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Chinese researchers have unveiled a revolutionary \u201ccold forming\u201d technique that can shape a complete, seamless dome in a few hours rather than a week \u2013 an advance that could tilt the balance of the US-China space race in the years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the high\u2011stakes space race between the United States and China, the decisive advantage could come down to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[134136,381,191241,20369,249428,249427,18,19,17,249423,11402,22569,249424,133,249422,451,2731,29793,249425,249426,384],"class_list":["post-588033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-calt","tag-china","tag-china-academy-of-launch-vehicle-technology","tag-china-science-daily","tag-dalian-university-of-technology","tag-dufieux","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jizhou-economic-development-zone","tag-long-march","tag-ltd","tag-m-torres","tag-science","tag-shanghai-top-numerical-control-technology","tag-space","tag-spacex","tag-tianjin","tag-tianjin-harbin-gongda-yongxing-technology-co","tag-top-numerical-control","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116927638157616808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}