HELSINKI — Chinese rocket startup Orienspace is moving towards a debut launch from a sea platform in the.
The Gravity-1 rocket will launch from a mobile sea platform developed as part of sea launch facilities developed at Haiyang in Shandong province during the second half of 2023, CEO Yao Song said in a mid-April meeting with provincial government leaders. Earlier announcements point to a fourth quarter launch.
Orienspace has already secured orders for the launch of hundreds of satellites and been shortlisted in plans for a number of satellite constellations, Yao stated.
Gravity-1 consists of three solid stages and four side boosters. The rocket will have the capability to lift around 6,500 kilograms of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), or 3,700 kilograms to 700-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
It will be China’s and the world’s most capable all-solid orbital launch vehicle. Gravity-1 will also have the greatest lift capacity of operational rockets in China’s budding commercial space sector so far.
Space Pioneer’s Tianlong-2—China’s first privately-operated liquid propellant rocket to reach orbit—set the current commercial record earlier this month. Tianlong-2 is capable of carrying 2,000 kilograms to LEO.
Orienspace, founded in 2020, has moved fast. Though following a pattern of first developing a solid rocket laid down by the earliest private launch startups in China, the size of the first vehicle is much greater, reflecting changes in the market and potential customers.
The company has been very active so far in 2023, including raising $47 million in funding, it announced in January. Orienspace previously raised $59.9 million last May .
Orienspace signed a contract with Changguang Satellite Technology Co. Ltd., (CGST) April 17 for the launch of a number of Jilin-1 Gaofen-05 series spacecraft. The series will be the fourth generation of remote sensing satellite for CGST, a remote sensing satellite…
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