China's Space Program Thread II

[Blitzo]

You literally said it yourself, reusable rockets are just so much more economical and scalable for future growth, building one extra booster to handle more launches is far easier than expanding production facilities to boost production by dozens per year and the associated logistics (Also, the price advantage is only in the small to medium lift range so you'd also need far more launches for the same capacity), all of that costs money, time and manpower. Unlike what people think even SOEs don't have infinite money, they're still budget and time constrained.

Also, you do realize Falcon 9 is extremely fat in margins right now, I wouldn't be surprised these new expendable rockets are launching at a bare profit if not break even just to attract more customers and put a nicer looking number on the brochure to keep themselves competitive which really isn't uncommon these days.

People at CALT and other launch providers aren't dumb, they ran the numbers and came to the same conclusion that reusable rockets is the future instead of trying to scale up production of these expendable rockets.

In the long term, reusable rockets are desirable, especially for progressively larger unitary payloads.

But dingyibvs is also correct in saying that if there are existing expendable rockets are also competitive with resuable rockets (like F9) in terms of payload to orbit, then it implies rocket quantity, materials, labour, etc are sufficiently plentiful and work well enough and can exist as a bridging capability until reusables become more prevalent.
There's no reason to contest this particular hypothetical, because the question isn't necessarily about what is the best solution for long term sustainable launch to orbit, but comparing specifically the costs to orbit compared to a vehicle like F9.


If one desires to more regularly send larger unitary payloads into orbit, then reusables are the only way forwards because the whole point of unitary payloads is many smaller rockets (resuable or expendable) may be able to put up the same equivalent mass and volume into orbit and perhaps even at equivalent cost, but it won't be a singular object.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Zhongke Aerospace's IPO application on the Science and Technology Innovation Board has been accepted, with plans to raise 4.18 billion yuan to tackle reusable rocket technology.​

Zhongke Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), has successfully had its IPO application formally accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on March 31, 2026. Listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board with Guotai Haitong Securities as its sponsor, the company intends to raise 4.18 billion yuan. This capital influx is strategically allocated to accelerate the development of reusable launch vehicles and liquid engines, marking a pivotal shift from traditional solid rocket propulsion to more advanced, medium-sized liquid reusable systems. The funds will specifically support the construction of industrial bases for reusable liquid engines and the iteration of commercial aerospace technology, aiming to significantly reduce launch costs and improve operational efficiency through next-generation products like the Lijian-2 rocket.

Founded in 2018 by the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhongke Aerospace is a unique mixed-ownership enterprise that recently became China's first private commercial rocket company to undertake multiple major national missions. Its flagship "LiJi" series has already demonstrated significant success with 11 successful launches carrying over 84 satellites and more than 11 tons of payload into orbit. Financially, the company has shown robust growth, with revenue surging from approximately 5.95 million yuan in 2022 to 244 million yuan by 2024. Although high R&D investments have resulted in accumulated losses exceeding 2.4 billion yuan through September 2025 and a lack of immediate profitability, the company aims to capture roughly 63% of China's private launch service market by 2025, positioning itself as the market leader ahead of competitors like LandSpace.

The successful acceptance of Zhongke Aerospace's listing application underscores the accelerating entry of leading domestic commercial aerospace firms into capital markets to drive technological breakthroughs and industrial expansion. As the second company on this board after LandSpace, its IPO aligns with national goals for strengthening independent control capabilities in the aerospace sector during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. By funding upstream and downstream supply chains including launch vehicles, aerospace electronics, and satellite manufacturing, this financial milestone is expected to facilitate large-scale commercial applications of reusable rocket technology, ultimately promoting a dual optimization of cost and efficiency across China's growing space economy.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[ZachL111]

According to Cas Space. Their upper stage + satellite combo will fly with CZ-10A in mid of this year. Which means the full CZ-10A maiden flight may be earlier than expected..

We have the official reasoning and reporting on this now. They are keeping the Mengzhou-1 in September but switching out the payload for this, it will now be a so called 'Space-Time Reference Satellite' which likely is for lunar based communications and architecture, from what I can guess. The DRO series and Queqiao already accomplish some of these objectives, so this is likely another iteration from what I understand. Jack wrote up a great article clarifying what went on.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This is great news overall though, we can expect that CZ-10A to be mid-year, which I look forward to.

Edit:

Also saw this on X earlier today, apparently the Lijian-2 also launched some space-hospital experiments, in hopes of a future research project to have a hospital sort of system in space, from what I am reading.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2039568508720390478

 

[taxiya]

it will now be a so called 'Space-Time Reference Satellite' which likely is for lunar based communications and architecture, from what I can guess. The DRO series and Queqiao already accomplish some of these objectives, so this is likely another iteration from what I understand. Jack wrote up a great article clarifying what went on.

Space-Time Reference Satellite is atomic clock in space. DRO-L and A/B are communication and navigation experiments.

In GNSS, the reference clock is at ground, sat will sync to them when passing over. Ground signal would be too weak for deep space, so it is necessary to put it in sat between earth and moon. DRO-L, A/B are equivlant to regular GNSS sats.

 

[ZachL111]

Space-Time Reference Satellite is atomic clock in space. DRO-L and A/B are communication and navigation experiments.

In GNSS, the reference clock is at ground, sat will sync to them when passing over. Ground signal would be too weak for deep space, so it is necessary to put it in sat between earth and moon. DRO-L, A/B are equivlant to regular GNSS sats.

Very true. It will assist in their navigation, communications, and other things similar to those.

 

[bsdnf]

TL-3 launch failed

 

[Tomboy]

TL-3 launch failed

So much for Space Pioneer, they've really fallen off. Ridiculous that a year or so ago, they were seen as the forefront of Chinese private launch provider.

It's really now down to Landspace and CAS Space, everyone else seems to be too far behind technologically to capitalise fast enough.

 

[Blitzo]

So much for Space Pioneer, they've really fallen off. Ridiculous that a year or so ago, they were seen as the forefront of Chinese private launch provider.

It's really now down to Landspace and CAS Space, everyone else seems to be too far behind technologically to commercialise fast enough.

"Commercialise fast enough" is an interesting phrase to use.

The commercial launch industry is still at in fairly early stages and there will be a lot of room for players with medium lift vehicles in the next couple of years to prove themselves alongside the state manufacturers, and there aren't any companies who are so disproportionately more capable over the others to be able to capture all of that demand.


edit: that said, I'm amused at Space Pioneer's, they really are doing a bit of slapstick comedy with TL-3's progression

 

[Tomboy]

"Commercialise fast enough" is an interesting phrase to use.

The commercial launch industry is still at in fairly early stages and there will be a lot of room for players with medium lift vehicles in the next couple of years to prove themselves alongside the state manufacturers, and there aren't any companies who are so disproportionately more capable over the others to be able to capture all of that demand.

It's pretty disingenuous to say there aren't one company that is disproportionately more capable over the others. Landspace would likely be the first to achieve reuse probably atleast a year or two ahead of others now that their closest competitor just blew their first launch (Not that it matters, even if it works, TL-3 isn't reusable in its current configuration and AFAIK optimistically they'll try reuse in 2027 under the assumption the first succeed). It's enough time for them to mature ZQ-3 to have a huge capacity advantage over everyone else by the time others finally achieve reuse.

Assuming Landspace doesn't run into major issues with ZQ-3 this year, most of the future capacity for QF/GW will likely be split between ZQ-3 and LM-10B/C series. I'm not saying there isn't any room left, there obviously is with lower end/smaller payloads and rapid response like with the KZ series or possibly GW/QF might want to diverify a bit more with launch providers.

 

[Tomboy]

First images of TL-3, seems like a engine blew