Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
BEIJING — The commercial viability of China’s forthcoming medium-heavy space launcher, the Long March 7, looks doubtful in the face of competition from Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). SpaceX sees its keenest competition for low Earth orbit (LEO) launch services coming from China. But it looks like CASC, the Chinese government’s main space industrial group, cannot match the prices of SpaceX with the Long March 7, which is in the class of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and, according to a 2013 schedule, due to fly this year.
Two major sections of the first C919 fuselage have been connected, and the nose is in position to join them. “Final assembly is proceeding steadily,” says Comac, adding that it is trying to complete joining the structure by year-end, after which it will integrate the on-board systems. The roll-out is due in the third quarter of 2015.
