A lot of initial rocket launches before the end of the year. Jiuquan launch center will be very busy.
China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
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A lot of initial rocket launches before the end of the year. Jiuquan launch center will be very busy.
As opposed to what I said prior, it was indeed a Kuaizhou-11 that launched, we've never really seen a launch with that azimuth before from that location, so most people assumed it was a Long March 6, good to know they can launch that from the pad.
The payload was the Dier-5 and Xiwang-5 02, I have a lot of pictures and the mission patch to show below, but this launch was unique, they had to go for a lower inclination orbit and try to fit a larger fairing on it, which was available prior but never used.
There is the official post-launch blog and an article from Jack describing the launch.
(I got the Y numbering wrong on the Imgur link, disregard that)
This was the 86th launch in 2025 from China.
The payload was the Dier-5 and Xiwang-5 02, I have a lot of pictures and the mission patch to show below, but this launch was unique, they had to go for a lower inclination orbit and try to fit a larger fairing on it, which was available prior but never used.
There is the official post-launch blog and an article from Jack describing the launch.
(I got the Y numbering wrong on the Imgur link, disregard that)
This was the 86th launch in 2025 from China.
(I am going to start keeping launch threads separate, instead of grouping them together like I have done prior)
In other news, we had some back-and-forth of sorts between SpaceX and CAS Space on Twitter/X, regarding a close-call between a recently launched satellite from China and a Starlink satellite. Now, it is unknown which specific satellite orbited close to Starlink's, and I am not going to comment on the truthfulness of the statement at all, others have already speculated and will continue to do so, I am just providing the statements and factual nature of this.
The was basically saying this:
Now, all-in-all, this was actually a really professional encounter on both sides, but it does show the necessity for the United States to drop some of their restrictions on communications to Chinese space agencies, regulators, and overall private launch providers. Either way, CAS Space does have countless public (and private, I'm sure) debris avoidance techniques and communications.
As to which satellite is the culprit, I would not say for sure. I do think they'll investigate and release more information as soon as they have it.
Moving on, we should have more information on the ZQ-3 launches of Y2 and Y3 next year, it seems, and they've confirmed they will continue to attempt reusability (obviously) and have recovered the black box from the Y1 rocket, so they know exactly what went wrong.
Here are the comments this about the overall process and design, and other things of that nature.
Had to cut off the article due to no space. Will write another reply with more news if I find anything.
In other news, we had some back-and-forth of sorts between SpaceX and CAS Space on Twitter/X, regarding a close-call between a recently launched satellite from China and a Starlink satellite. Now, it is unknown which specific satellite orbited close to Starlink's, and I am not going to comment on the truthfulness of the statement at all, others have already speculated and will continue to do so, I am just providing the statements and factual nature of this.
The was basically saying this:
Alleging that the Kinetica-1 launch, which I covered prior here, dispatched a satellite that orbited within 200 meters of the Starlink satellite. Now, CAS Space did retweet with this as well, saying the following:
And then following up with a retweet of their initial retweet with this , saying the following:
Michael Nicolls, who made the original tweet, then sent this as a reply:
Now, all-in-all, this was actually a really professional encounter on both sides, but it does show the necessity for the United States to drop some of their restrictions on communications to Chinese space agencies, regulators, and overall private launch providers. Either way, CAS Space does have countless public (and private, I'm sure) debris avoidance techniques and communications.
As to which satellite is the culprit, I would not say for sure. I do think they'll investigate and release more information as soon as they have it.
Moving on, we should have more information on the ZQ-3 launches of Y2 and Y3 next year, it seems, and they've confirmed they will continue to attempt reusability (obviously) and have recovered the black box from the Y1 rocket, so they know exactly what went wrong.
Here are the comments this about the overall process and design, and other things of that nature.
Had to cut off the article due to no space. Will write another reply with more news if I find anything.
Rest of the article below.
No real large news as far as I can tell, just awaiting launch on the 15th, it seems we might hit 90 launch attempts this year which I didn't even think was possible earlier this month.
Passing within 200m is basically point blank range, really fortunate that no collision occured. As similar mega constellation of LEO communication satellites continue to proliferate, risk of collision can only increase.
I apologize if this has already been posted, but this is a new rocket company in China that I just saw Andrew Jones posted, I've been tracking them since August, but I figured since he posted, I should put it here too.
Their name is 北京领航星箭科技有限公司 (Linghang Xingjian Technology Co., Ltd.) and they want to produce the 星舟一号 (Xingzhou-1) with some sort of intelligent grid and net recovery system. They were established on the 20th of June, this year, and work in a large amount of industries, or at least they will likely.
They're recruiting for very senior roles on their job postings, and they've mostly just got PR out for now on what they want to do. They want to use a net-frame, basically a grid, to catch rockets versus landing leg systems like the ZQ-3 or CZ-12A, and their rocket itself has two variants, a base model of 3.5 tons to 500km SSO, with a target price of under 7000 Yuan per kilo, and another configuration of the same rocket? with CBC, there is no more real detail on this variant, other than it should be 7.1 tons to 700km SSO.
They are also claiming some sort of AI assistant to have, a digital twin sort of program for the rocket design, with intelligent control, reusability, and rapid inspection and maintaining capabilities. They claim to want to have a first flight by December 2027, which is ambitious at best, as Andrew also put it.
I was reading this article, which was interesting, to say the least. Basically, Wang Wenjie, GM of 中国航天科技集团商业火箭有限公司, was giving a keynote speech and discussed how Chinese commercial rocket companies should shift from isolation to coordination, and I believe this is how the launch industry will go from now on, both based on government policy, and private efforts.
Also read this article, Guoxing Yuhang and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have signed a cooperation agreement to build the first Chinese space computing joint lab. The research areas with be space computing chips, robotic satellites, and in-orbit additive manufacturing. They want to build a space-computing network, as the name states, and this is a great push between industry and academia in my opinion.
Also saw this rare abnormal trading volatility announcement, basically on the risks of commercial space data centers. It's warning against (which might also be relevant for authorities) over-reliance on the commercial/money-making push that enterprise tends to undergo, and speaks on the risks of radiation, orbital maintenance, debris hazards, data-governance issues, and space-traffic regulation, giving a likely 5 years or more to show actual commercial value. It also mentions it may take 5-10 years before these systems actually compete with ground-based data centers.
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Long March series getting ready for reusable launch test and recovery.
Updated space station designs for the next phase.