China's Space Program Thread II

[AndrewJ]

Well, I admit US has large rockets & strong engines, also great advances in reusable tech, such as F9 & Starship. Their launch capacity & rocket reuse tech is far ahead of China.

But just because launch is easy for US, makes them launch lots of small satellites day by day, sometimes flood low orbit. I don't think it's a wise idea to waste so much space & capacity, acting like they‘re in a cutthroat competition to occupy most frequency & space before others, rather than improve payload efficiency & reduce unnecessary waste. Frequency & Space is limited, so China is trying to catch up before it's too late.

Some will argue on my opinion of "waste". But I'll give you an easy example. Remember how people's view change on US & China's AI race when Deepseek R1 came out? American has limitless money & GPU cards ($500B STARGATE), and everyone thought China was years behind because of sanctions, and shortage of high-performance GPUs.

 

[GulfLander]

Well, I admit US has large rockets & strong engines, also great advances in reusable tech, such as F9 & Starship. Their launch capacity & rocket reuse tech is far ahead of China.

But just because launch is easy for US, makes them launch lots of small satellites day by day, sometimes flood low orbit. I don't think it's a wise idea to waste so much space & capacity, acting like they‘re in a cutthroat competition to occupy most frequency & space before others, rather than improve payload efficiency & reduce unnecessary waste. Frequency & Space is limited, so China is trying to catch up before it's too late.

Some will argue on my opinion of "waste". But I'll give you an easy example. Remember how people's view change on US & China's AI race when Deepseek R1 came out? American has limitless money & GPU cards ($500B STARGATE), and everyone thought China was years behind because of sanctions, and shortage of high-performance GPUs.

Werent LEO satellites eventually fall off the orbit?


"Falling Starlink satellites worry scientists, 120 fell from space in Jan"

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[GulfLander]

"A Beijing-based private aerospace company Galactic Energy has carried out a new launch of its flagship rocket model #CERES1. The CERES-1 Y10 rocket lifted off at 4:07pm BJT on March 17, from #Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, sending 8 satellites into 535km SSO."

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1901553351155646718

 

[pipaster]

"A Beijing-based private aerospace company Galactic Energy has carried out a new launch of its flagship rocket model #CERES1. The CERES-1 Y10 rocket lifted off at 4:07pm BJT on March 17, from #Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, sending 8 satellites into 535km SSO."

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1901553351155646718

To expand on the above post. Find below CGTN's article on this launch.

China's CERES-1 commercial rocket put eight satellites into the 535-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit on Monday.

The carrier rocket, CERES-1 Y10, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 4:07 p.m. on March 17 on a mission dubbed "Auld Lang Syne." It delivered five satellites, including the Yunyao-1 55-60 and the AIRSAT-06 and -07 satellites.

Equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) occultation detection payloads, the Yunyao-1 satellites are part of the commercial meteorological satellite constellation the Tianjin-based company Yunyao Aerospace is building, with plans for 90 in total. The payload enables satellites to collect atmospheric temperature, humidity, pressure and ionospheric electron density data.

The constellation aims to establish a real-time global atmospheric and ionospheric detection system for global weather forecasting and application in various industries. Specifically, it will provide meteorological forecast information with a real-time performance better than 20 minutes for countries along the Belt and Road partner countries, according to the company.

Beijing-based rocket company Galactic Energy has completed 17 successful launches, with its most recent mission marking the first commercial launch of the year in China.

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[Believer2]

Some launch images of the Ceres-1 launch carrying

Zhongke 06-07 & Yunyao-1 55-60​

 

[by78]

The launchpad for the Long March 10 moon rocket is coming along nicely.

 

[by78]

The 80-ton LOX/Methane YF-209 engine has successfully completed its second full-engine test run just five days after completing its first.

CosmoLeap's flight controller (named Flint-1) for the company's Leap-1 launch vehicle has passed interface compatibility tests with the rocket's other subsystems.

We now know that CosmoLeap will use CASC's 80-ton reusable YF-209 engine to power its Leap-1 launch vehicle. CASC and CosmoLeap recently carried out a hot test run of YF-209, which was controlled by CosmoLeap's Flint-1 flight controller. The test simulated in-flight restarts and wide-range thrust adjustments and was a complete success.

 

[escobar]

Seems its the launch capacity that is restricting more faster launches more than satellite capacity issues then. Will be interesting to see if they can match Space launch rate this coming years

While there is a shortage of launch capacity in China today, this likely won’t last forever, with several rockets moving slowly but surely towards reusability.

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[by78]

Ziwei's commerical cargo spacecraft lineup, which is under active development:
– A10 (capacity 10kg)
– B300 (capacity 300kg)
– C2000 (capacity 2000kg)

AZSpace/Ziwei is accelerating the development of a manned spaceship. More than 20 unmanned flight tests are planned, to be followed by a manned orbital flight in 2027 or 2028. As for the company's unmanned cargo spacecraft, two flights of B300 are planned for this year, which will carry out space docking verification as well as testing an improved B300 variant featuring greater cargo capacity and a new intelligent cargo management system.