All about China
This Thursday (11), China launched the world's most powerful solidfuel rocket from a platform ship. The launch was carried out by Orienspace, the Chinese company SpaceX.
The event took place on the east coast of Shandong (China), more precisely in the city of Haiyang in the east of the country. The rocket, called Gravity1, flew into space with three longrange sensitive satellites, as Orionspace reported in a press release.
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Orientspace
As Portal explains, Orienspace was founded in 2020 by veterans of China's state space agencies. The launch this Thursday (11) was planned for the second half of last year.
Orienspace's idea is, from the first launch of Gravity1, to pave the way for the launch of satellites into low and medium orbits in the private sector, which is beginning to grow and “threaten” Chinese stateowned companies.
The company's CEO, Yao Song, said last year that his company had already received orders to launch hundreds of satellites.
Watch the launch in the video below:
Gravity1 and its launch
- According to O Globo, Gravity1 is 30 meters tall;
- It can carry about 6.5 tons of payload to low Earth orbit and 4.2 tons to sunsynchronous orbit;
- Gravity1 can also place up to 30 satellites into orbit in a single launch;
- With a diameter of 4.2 m, it is the largest solidfuel rocket ever built;
- There are three main stages and four engines, each equipped with flexible oscillating nozzles;
- Orienspace also guarantees that it is able to organize launches both in seven days and in just 24 hours.
Maritime platform
Orienspace's option to launch the rocket from a platform ship was to increase the frequency of launches, since in sea launches the entire process, including assembly and testing, is carried out in areas much closer to the actual launch site. This makes logistics easier and reduces costs.
Additionally, deepsea rocket launches can reduce the risk of these spacecraft stages crashing into inhabited areas upon return to Earth.
New rockets are coming
And Orienspace doesn't want to stop at Gravity1; Gravity2 is already in preparation. It will have a liquidfueled core stage and solid rocket boosters. It is expected to be completed next year.
There is also already a Gravity 3 project that will combine three main stages of Gravity2, a strategy identical to that of the Falcon Heavy, Elon Musk's SpaceX spacecraft.