Disaster! China just Announced Starship Raptor 3 COPYCAT to Beat SpaceX! Elon Musk Laughs…

SpaceX has a habit of pushing rocket technology into territory others once considered impossible. And now, China appears to be taking a close look at one of its biggest breakthroughs, Raptor 3. The engine is more powerful, lighter, and simpler than its predecessors. Chinese engineers are reportedly developing an engine with striking similarities to it. But copying the design is one thing, reproducing the manufacturing materials, cooling, combustion stability, and reliability is another. So how close is China really getting to Raptor 3, and can it reproduce the performance behind the design? Let's find out on today's episode of Great SpaceX. You're probably already familiar with China's growing push to develop rockets and engines that bear striking similarities to technologies pioneered by SpaceX. We've seen it across rocket designs, propulsion systems, and launch infrastructure. And now, there's another one to add to the list. Space Pioneer, the company behind the Tianlong rocket family, has just released a new lineup of engines. And there's one in particular that's immediately going to catch your attention. The Tianhe-21. Take away the Chinese characters, and at first glance, you could almost mistake it for SpaceX's Raptor 3. The resemblance is striking. Just compare it with Space Pioneer's earlier engines, the Tianhe-12 and Tianhe-11 engines, covered in external pipes and complicated looking hardware. Then, look at the Tianhe-21. Most of that complexity is gone. Instead, we get a much cleaner and more compact design with far fewer exposed components. And that looks very similar to the direction SpaceX took with Raptor 3. SpaceX has been simplifying the engine by integrating more components and eliminating unnecessary external plumbing. That can reduce weight and manufacturing complexity while also removing potential failure points. It can make the engine easier to produce, inspect, and eventually reuse. But the really interesting question is what's happening underneath the remarkably clean exterior. Because Tianhe-21 isn't simply a visual redesign. Its specifications point to some major changes from Space Pioneer's previous engines. Let's start with the fuel. Tianhe-21 uses methane and liquid oxygen, or methalox. That's a major departure from the earlier Tianhe-12 used liquid oxygen and kerosene, while Tianhe-11 used a different propellant combination altogether. There's another reason it's particularly interesting for long duration spaceflight. Methane and oxygen can potentially be produced from resources available on Mars. That's one of the reasons SpaceX chose methane for Raptor. And now, Space Pioneer is moving in the same direction. Then there's the engine cycle. According to the translated specifications, Tianhe-21 uses a full flow staged combustion cycle. That's a major step up from the gas generator cycle used by Tianhe-12 and the fuel-rich staged combustion approach associated with Tianhe-21. And the numbers get even more interesting. Tianhe-21 is listed at around 2,450 kN of thrust. That's roughly 250 metric tons of thrust for comparison. Tianhe-11 was listed around 280 kN, while Tianhe-12 reached approximately 1,100 kN. This isn't a minor upgrade. It's a substantial jump in engine performance. Its listed specific impulse also reaches around 322 seconds at sea level, compared with roughly 285 seconds for Tianhe-12. And the variable thrust range remains around 50 to 110%. So, from the fuel to the engine cycle to the overall architecture, Space Pioneer is making some pretty significant changes. And many of those changes happen to be characteristics we've already seen become central to SpaceX's Raptor development. That's what makes Tianhe-21 so interesting. It's not simply that the engine looks similar to Raptor-3. The underlying design direction appears to be moving in a similar direction as well. But there's an important question here. Is Tianhe-21 just another Raptor-inspired engine concept? Because we've seen similar designs before. We've previously covered engines such as JZYJ's FY-100 and Arctec's Mammoth-1. If you haven't seen our previous Raptor-3 copycat coverage or our other Raptor-3 copycat episode, you can check them out after this video. But there's an important difference here. Those other engines have largely remained at the development stage. Space Pioneer already has an actual rocket program. And that's where Tianlong-3 comes in. Because before Tianhe-21 started looking like Raptor-3, Tianlong-3 was already drawing comparisons to another SpaceX rocket, Falcon 9. At around 72 meters tall and 3.8 meters in diameter, Tianlong-3 is remarkably close to Falcon 9 in size. Both are two-stage rockets. Both use nine engines on the first stage. Both use vacuum-optimized engines on the second stage. And both are designed around first stage recovery and reuse. Space Pioneer is targeting around 10 to 20 booster reuses with Tianlong-3 designed to deliver around 17 to 22 tons to low earth orbit. So the Falcon 9 comparison isn't simply about appearance. It's about the operating philosophy. Launch, recover, refurbish, fly again. But here's where things get even more peculiar. Tianlong-3 isn't trying to copy Starship either. It's a much smaller vehicle, closer to Falcon 9 in overall mission class. Yet its propulsion technology is moving toward the same territory as Starship. Methane propulsion, full-flow staged combustion, and a highly integrated engine architecture. In other words, Space Pioneer appears to be combining ideas from two different stages of SpaceX's development. Falcon 9's reusable booster architecture with Starship's advanced methalox propulsion. The company has also reportedly explored stainless steel construction, another feature strongly associated with Starship. So on paper, the formula is certainly interesting. A Falcon 9-sized reusable rocket powered by an engine architecture that resembles the direction SpaceX took with Raptor using methane and potentially incorporating lessons from Starship's manufacturing approach. But copying a design philosophy is only the beginning. The real challenge is making it work. An engine can look like Raptor 3 without matching its performance. A rocket can be designed for reuse without actually achieving it. And a successful landing is still very different from rapid repeatable operations. That's what Space Pioneer ultimately has to prove with Tianlong-3. Because the similarities are easy to see, the hard part is turning those similarities into a reliable launch system. Tianhua-21 may look like Raptor 3. Tianlong-3 may look like Falcon 9. But none of that matters unless the hardware can deliver the performance, survive flight, come back, and do it all over again. That's where the real test begins. Not when these designs leave the drawing board. Not when they leave the factory. But when they leave the launch pad and start flying. Clearly, these designs look impressive. But can Space Pioneer actually catch up with SpaceX? That's where things get complicated. Let's start with Tianhua-21. On the surface, it looks remarkably similar to Raptor 3. The shape is similar. The structure is similar. Even the advertised thrust figures point in the same direction. But reproducing the appearance of Raptor 3 is very different from reproducing what's happening inside it. Musk recently made that point. He warned that new companies should avoid trying to build Raptor 3 because despite its remarkably simple exterior, the engine contains extremely complex internal geometry that requires heavily modified 3D metal printing. And that's where the real challenge begins. Raptor 3 isn't defined by what you can see from the outside. Its performance comes from everything happening underneath that surface. The combination, the combustion chamber, the cooling system, the turbo machinery, the materials, the manufacturing process, all of those systems have to work together under extreme temperatures and pressures. And SpaceX didn't arrive at the configuration overnight. It took years of testing, failures, redesigns, and refinement. Tianhua-21 now has to go through that same unforgiving process. Until the engine survives serious ground testing and eventually flight, its advertised specifications remain just that, specifications. And Tianlong-3 gives us an important example of why that distinction matters. Unlike Tianhua-21, Tianlong-3 is already a flying rocket. Space Pioneer had an impressive start with Tianlong-2, which reached orbit on its first attempt in 2023. Tianlong-3, however, has followed a much harder development path. On June 30th of 2024, all nine first stage engines were being fired during a static test when the rocket broke free from the test stand. It traveled roughly 1.5 kilometers before crashing and exploding. Nobody was injured, but the booster was destroyed. Then came the first flight on April 3rd of 2026. The launch initially appeared normal, but around 189.5 seconds into the mission, an interaction involving liquid oxygen and turbine exhaust triggered a fire near the bottom of the vehicle. The resulting damage led to engine shutdowns and an uncontrolled mission, and that failure illustrates something important about rocket development. It's not enough for individual components to work on their own, the engines have to work with the tanks, the plumbing has to work with the propulsion system, the avionics have to control the vehicle, the thermal protection has to survive the environment, and the flight control system has to keep everything operating as the rocket accelerates through the atmosphere. A rocket is an integrated system, and the only way to truly learn how that system behaves is to test it, again and again, under increasingly demanding conditions. That's where flight experience matters. SpaceX has been building that experience for more than a decade. Falcon 9 went from its first successful landing in 2015 to hundreds of flights and booster recoveries, with some individual stages flying more than 20 times. Every flight adds another data point, every landing reveals something new, every refurbishment tells engineers what survived, what failed, and what needs to change. Over time, SpaceX turned recovery from an experiment into a routine part of launch operations. That's the experience gap Tianlong-3 still has to close, and SpaceX isn't standing still. The company is already pushing beyond Falcon 9. Starship is more than 120 meters tall, around 9 meters wide, methane-fueled, and designed around full two-stage reuse. Super Heavy has already demonstrated multiple tower catches, while SpaceX continues working toward recovering ship. So, Space Pioneer is effectively pursuing two different parts of SpaceX's approach. Tianlong-3 follows the Falcon 9 philosophy of reusable first-stage operations. Tianhua-21 moves toward an engine architecture resembling Raptor 3, but adopting those concepts isn't the same as reproducing SpaceX's operational experience. A design, an architecture, even advertised specifications can be copied. But years of test data, successful flights, failed flights, recoveries, inspections, and engineering lessons can't be replicated simply by studying the finished product. That's what Space Pioneer ultimately has to build for itself. The experience, the flight history, the recovery process, and eventually, the turnaround process. Launch it, recover it, inspect it, refurbish it, launch it again, then do it again, and again, until reuse becomes routine. Because Tianhua-21 may look like Raptor 3, Tianlong-3 may resemble Falcon 9, but copying the hardware is one thing. Building the experience behind it is a completely different challenge. There's still a significant gap between what Space Pioneer is showing on paper, and what SpaceX has already demonstrated in the real world. But that's exactly what makes Tianhua-21 so interesting. Space Pioneer has now put forward an engine with an ambitious architecture, impressive specifications, and an unmistakable resemblance to the direction SpaceX took with Raptor. But the real test hasn't happened yet. Because everything we've talked about so far eventually comes down to one thing, flight. Can Space Pioneer manufacture the engine at scale? Can it survive the extreme conditions inside a full-flow staged combustion engine? Can it deliver the advertised performance reliably? And more importantly, can it do it again? That's the part SpaceX spent more than a decade proving with Falcon 9, and now Space Pioneer has to build that experience for itself. Tianhua-21 could become a major step in that process, but its real significance won't be decided by how closely it resembles Raptor 3. It'll be decided by what happens when the turbopumps spin up, the combustion chamber ignites, and the engine finally has to prove itself in flight. We've already seen how quickly ambitious rocket designs can run into problems once they leave the test stand. Now Tianhua-21 gets its chance. The design and the specs are on the table. The next question is simple. Can Space Pioneer make it work? Because the moment Tianhua-21 starts flying, we'll finally find out whether this is just a remarkable imitation, or the beginning of a genuinely capable new engine. In any case folks, thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.