China Roundup: Commercial launch providers drive forward reusability with more VTVL tests

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Private Chinese launch providers continue to march at pace toward reusability, with two companies performing test high-altitude hops of their Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing (VTVL) prototype vehicles. Deep Blue Aerospace is preparing to send a prototype of its Xingyung-1 reusable vehicle to at least 5 km, potentially to the same 10 km altitude achieved in late August by Landspace with its ZhuQue-3 hopper prototype.

The ZhuQue-3 prototype conducted a successful 10 km high-altitude test flight, lasting 200 seconds and, crucially, including an engine reignition test. Landspace shared several videos including views looking down from the landing legs, which are reminiscent of SpaceX’s Grasshopper pathfinder which contributed to the development of the Falcon vehicles. In the following week, an additional 360-degree VR version was released. This recording allows viewers to look upward and see the raceway cover being ripped off at engine re-ignition — something Landspace will address in the next iteration.

ZhuQue-3 prototype conducts VTVL test. (Credit: Landspace)

The test flight included engine cut-off 113 seconds into the flight, achieving a max velocity of around Mach 0.8. The single Tianque-12B engine performed a successful relight for a landing burn as it returned to the pad situated just over 3 km away, accurately landing 1.2 m from the center of the pad.

The company appears so confident in the results of this test that it has signaled that it could move directly to a flight and landing attempt with a full-scale ZhuQue-3 vehicle for the next test. The finished vehicle will sport nine of these engines, which burn liquid methane and oxygen as propellant. Manufactured from stainless steel, it will stand a little higher than a Falcon 9 at 76.6 m tall. The company is still targeting a maiden launch in June next year and a first recovery in 2026.

Landspace has also recently completed work extending the flame trench at its test facility. The company owns nearly half of Hongqing Technology, which has filed plans for another mega constellation that would compete with the G60 (‘Thousand Sails’) and the national Guowang constellations. The long-term plans for Honghu-3 similarly stretch into the tens of thousands, with satellites across as many as 160 orbital planes.

Deep Blue Aerospace is planning its own VTVL test flight from the company’s site at Ejin Banner. A first-stage prototype of its forthcoming Xingyun-1, also known as the Nebula-1, is being prepared for a high-altitude test of between 5 and 10 km.

Deep Blue Aerospace 1 km VTVL test in May 2022. (Credit: Deep Blue Aerospace)

The company has flown its subscale Nebula-M test article twice, achieving an altitude of 1 km on its second flight in 2022 from the company’s site in Tongchuan in Shaanxi Province. The Xingyung-1 is planned to take its maiden voyage from the new Hainan Commercial Launch Site in Wenchang by the end of this year, which will include an attempt to recover the first stage.

The vehicle is designed with a reusable booster that will land propulsively. If successful, it could beat the Tianlong-3 to become the first Chinese orbital rocket to launch and land. The vehicle has a similar profile to the Falcon 9 with nine 3D-printed Leiting-R1 (or Thunder-R1) engines burning liquid kerosene and oxygen. These engines have already conducted static fire tests, including the full-duration burns that would support the ascent and descent phases of flight.

Deep Blue Aerospace raised another round of funding in May this year and is aiming its sights on the mega constellation market. The volume of launches required to establish both the GuoWang and G60 networks should bring a demand that this launcher will be ready to fulfill. The company’s development roadmap also includes a larger Xingyung-2 design, which would increase the 3.5 m diameter fairing to 5 m and the capacity it can carry to LEO by from 2,000 kg to 20,000 kg.

Also on the horizon, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) have a test vehicle which is being readied for further testing later this year. A 75 km flight is expected, following a successful 12 km test in June. SAST’s expendable medium-lift carrier, the Chang Zheng 12, still awaits its maiden flight which is expected to take place soon from the Commercial Launch Pad 2 in Hainan.

Lunar & other missions

A new engine test center has become operational this month, also in the Shaanxi province. Understood to be the largest high-altitude test facility of its kind in Asia, the Tongchuan Test Center completed its first test firing on Sept. 10. Operated by the Xi’an Aerospace Propulsion Test Technology Research Institute, the facility tested the YF-58-1 engine that will power the China Manned Space Agency’s crewed Lanyue lunar lander. Completed in around eight months, the facility uses steam ejection pumps to simulate vacuum conditions.

China’s ambitions remain on course for a crewed lunar landing before 2030. With the Artemis III mission, originally planned for 2026, at risk of slipping further toward the end of the decade, it’s possible that China could yet be putting boots on the lunar surface ahead of the US.

Tongchuan Test Center performs test firing in the Shaanxi province. (Credit: CMSA/CASC)

Back in March, two satellites known as DRO-A and B failed to be deployed into the intended trans-lunar injection profile when the Chang Zheng 2C carrying them experienced an anomaly on the Yuanzheng-1S second stage. The pair have, nonetheless, recently reached a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. They will now support future missions with lunar navigation and testing communications with a third satellite, DRO-L, in low-Earth orbit.

Meanwhile, the Chang’e 6 service module has been detected in the vicinity of the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point for what may be an extended mission. Its predecessor, the Chang’e 5, also had sufficient propellant remaining and was seen to visit the L1 point before returning to a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon.

China’s asteroid deflection mission is now expected to alter the orbit of asteroid 2015 XF261 by four times as much as NASA’s recent DART mission when it impacted Dimorphos. This is a new target asteroid for the mission, which is expected to launch in 2027 and could increase its orbit by more than 900 km away from the Earth.

Taikonaut Ye Guangfu in the core module of the Tiangong Space Station. (Credit: CCTV)

Ye Guangfu became the first taikonaut to spend over 300 days in space as part of the ongoing Shenzhou-18 mission on the Tiangong Space Station — his second time in orbit. He has beaten Tang Hongbo’s previous record of almost 214 days in space and will have spent approximately 360 days when his mission ends in late October. The next crewed mission is scheduled to launch in November on a Chang Zheng 2F/G from Jiuquan.

China’s secretive and experimental spaceplane landed back on Earth on Sept. 6 after spending 268 days in orbit. The reusable spaceplane launched from the nearby Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center last December on a Chang Zheng 2F carrier, two weeks before the U.S. launched its own similar X-37B spaceplane. This third mission did not exceed its previous flight duration of 276 days, but once again, it was seen to release an object during the mission, appearing to test rendezvous and proximity operations with it.

Recent Launches

The first two weeks of September were unusually quiet for 14 days before launches picked up again with two more BeiDou satellites launched from Xichang. China will fall short of the earlier goal to launch 100 times by the end of the year and will have lofted 43 missions by the end of this week. Launches from commercial providers currently account for 28% of the total.

The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology’s (CAST) enhanced Chang Zheng 8A has been stacked and undergoing integration and propellant loading rehearsals at the Hainan Commercial Launch Site, though the first launch from LC-1 at the new facility is expected to be a standard CZ-8.

The first CZ-8A completes integration and propellant loading rehearsals at Hainan LC-1. (Credit: CALT)

Chang Zheng 4B | Yaogan 43 Group 01 and Group 02
Two missions delivered “remote sensing” satellites for the Chinese military into low-Earth orbit for Yaogan 43 Groups 01 and 02 in the last four weeks. The two groups launched within three weeks of each other from LC-3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on August 16 and Sept. 3. The launchers carried 15 payloads in total across the two missions, the latter utilizing the extended 4.2 m fairing for the second time and marking the CZ-4Bs 50th successful mission. The satellites are said to test new technologies of low-orbit constellations. There is speculation as to whether these satellites are prototypes of a Chinese equivalent to SpaceX’s Starshield or are forerunners of the planned GuoWang constellation.

Six YF-100 engines illuminate the sky as the CZ-7A lanches ChinaSat-4 from Wenchang Space Launch Site. (Credit: Weibo user / Practice Your Principles)

Chang Zheng 7A | ChinaSat 4A

The third Chang Zheng 7A mission of the year launched from Launch Complex 201 at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China on Thursday, Aug. 22, at 12:25 UTC. On board was the ChinaSat-4A communications satellite carrying voice, data, and television services. The payload was placed into a geostationary transfer orbit, marking the 150th successful orbital launch of the year. The distinct checkerboard livery was notably absent for this mission.

Gushenxing-1S | How Far I’ll Go

Galactic Energy’s sea-launched variant of the Gushenxing-1 (or Ceres 1S) launched for the third time on Thursday, Aug. 29, at 05:20 UTC. The four-stage booster carried six payloads to Sun-synchronous orbit, and the company later released some clear onboard footage from the sea platform itself.

Chang Zheng 6 | Geely Constellation Group 03

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) launched this mission out of LC-16 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China — a rare first night launch for this vehicle. The Chang Zheng 6 delivered 10 GeeSAT-1 spacecraft to orbit on Thursday, Sept. 5, at 18:30 UTC. This was Chang Zheng 6’s fifth mission of the year and 12th mission since its maiden flight nine years ago.

On board were satellites for Chinese car manufacturer Geely’s Future Mobility Constellation, which will support connectivity and positioning for autonomous driving vehicles. This increases the count of satellites in operational orbit for this constellation to 30, with a total of 72 planned by the end of next year.

Chang Zheng 3B prepares for the BeiDou-3 mission at Xichang. (Credit: Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology)

Chang Zheng 3B/YZ-1 | BeiDou-3

Two more global positioning satellites were launched for the BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) to medium-Earth orbit. Lift-off occurred on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 01:14 UTC from LC-2 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the Sichuan Province.

This was the fifth Chang Zheng 3B to fly this year, lofting the 59th and 60th BeiDou satellites, massing 4,500 kg, to an altitude of approximately 22,000 km. The Yuanzheng-1 upper stage was required to deliver the satellites to their parking orbit and can only ignite its engines twice. This constellation is an alternative to the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and is claimed to be ten times more accurate than GPS via post-processing. It’s suspected that this launch also tested a parachute system on one of the boosters that could return either boosters or fairings massing up to 4,000 kg to the ground for later recovery.

Chang Zheng 2D | Jilin-1 Wideband 02B – 01 to 06

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) launched a Chang Zheng 2D on Friday, Sept. 20, at 04:11 UTC from LC-9 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in the Shanxi Province of China. This was the 91st mission for this two-stage orbital carrier manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST).

Onboard were six ultra-wideband observation satellites which will offer users 0.5 m resolution with a width of 150 km and feature high-speed data transmission. This brings the number of Jilin-1 satellites in orbit to 114, so named after the Jilin province in which the satellite operator and developer, Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co, is based. The batch also included the first of a new Qilian Series developed to support forestry and grassland protection in Gansu in addition to forest fire prevention and disaster monitoring.

Chang Zheng 2D launches more Jilin-1 satellites from LC-9 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (Credit: CCTV)

Kuaizhou 1A | Tianqi 29-32

ExPace launched its Kuaizhou 1A carrier for the third time this year, carrying four more satellites for the Tianqi Internet of Things (IoT) constellation in low-Earth orbit. The launch took place than six hours after the CZ-2D mission on Friday, Sept. 20, at 09:43 UTC from the mobile launcher pad at Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

This four-stage vehicle stands 3.4 m high with a 1.4 m wide fairing and is capable of lifting 300 kg to low-Earth orbit. It has previously lofted various payloads into Sun-synchronous orbit, such as the small meteorology satellites for the Tianmu-1 constellation.

(Lead image: ZhuQue-3 prototype begins its 10 km VTVL Test. Credit: Landspace)

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