The annual report of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASC) reports that China failed to meet the goal it set a year ago of 100 rocket launches into space. State companies were to launch 70 missiles, and another 30 by private companies. In fact, 68 launches were made, two of which were emergency.
Image source: CAS Space
In 2023, China set a record for rocket launches at 67 launches. This year the record was broken – the 68th launch took place recently. Unfortunately, it ended in failure. The third stage of the Kinetica-1 (Lijian-1) solid-propellant rocket of the private company CAS Space failed three seconds after the start of operation, and the rocket self-destructed. The second failure is also associated with the launch of a private company, iSpace, which lost its Hyperbola-1 rocket in July.
The failure of the annual plan did not prevent China from remaining in second place in the world in the number of rockets sent into space. The United States remains in first place with more than 150 launches, which also includes launches by Rocket Lab in New Zealand. Russia remains in third place with 17 launches for the year. Year after year, the number of launches in Russia is decreasing: 25 in 2021, 22 in 2022 and 19 in 2023.
China relied on Long March missiles for nearly half of its launches (32). Light solid rockets accounted for another 17 launches (five Ceres-1 launches, four Kinetica-1 launches, four Kuaizhou-1 launches, two Jielong-3 missiles, one Hyperbola-1 missile and one Kuaizhou-11 missile).
The busiest Chinese spaceport was Jiuquan in the eponymous region of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where 21 launches were carried out. Another 19 launches were from Xichang, 6 from the sea, 13 from Taiwan and 9 from Wenchang.
The launches included the debut flights of Orienspace’s commercial solid-propellant Gravity-1 rocket, Landspace’s advanced Methalox Zhuque-2E solid-propellant rocket, CASIC/Expace’s Kuaizhou-1A advanced solid-propellant rocket, and Long March 6C and Long March 12 from Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) at CASC.
China also set a national record with more than 260 spacecraft launched into orbit in 2024, significantly exceeding the record 221 spacecraft launched in 2023. This is partly due to the launches of the first batches of Internet satellites of the Qianfan (“Thousand Sails”) and Guowang (“National Network”) projects. Both projects are expected to lead to further growth in Chinese launches in the coming years.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
