Launch rate continues apace
China conducted its 41st, 42nd and 43rd launches of 2021 last week, extending its new national launch record, with Jiuquan (northwest), Taiyuan (north) and Xichang (southwest) Satellite Launch Centres all in action. Two launches of military Yaogan remote sensing satellites sandwiched the delivery of SDGSAT-1 (Sustainable Development Goals Sat-1, previously known as CASEarth) to orbit.
Linkspace return from the dead
China’s first private launch company (est. 2014) has reemerged after what was a near two-year hiatus.
Linkspace
announced Nov. 2 that it had tested an independently-developed electric pump-fed methane-LOX engine named Fengbao-1 as a step towards suborbital launch and landing tests.
Linkspace carried out a successful
300-meter VTVL test with an ethanol-powered tech demonstrator in August 2019 as part of development of the planned NewLine-1 orbital launcher, targeting a first flight in 2019
The company signed an agreement with rocket engine maker Jiuzhou Yunjian for 10-ton thrust methane-LOX engines shortly after to power a larger test vehicle. However silence followed until March this year when the company
posted a recruitment notice and now is progressing with its own, independently developed engine.
Linkspace did not provide a new timeline for suborbital and orbital launches following its reemergence. A much newer entrant, Deep Blue Aerospace, last month conducted a
100-meter hop test with the second launch of its Nebula-M tech demonstrator. (Sources:
Spacenews,
Linkspace)