CAS Space, the commercial launch company backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and with support from the Guangzhou Government,
announced this week an agreement with Zhuhai Orbita to develop a rocket that looks conceptually very similar to the New Shepard, and that will be used for space tourism. This is significant news, considering that there was
a lack of tangible space tourism projects in China (although some companies like Space Transportation, Landspace or iSpace do have related projects).
It is not entirely clear what each company will bring to the table, but yet again, we have an example of the development of a Guangdong Province space cluster, with Zhuhai being ~1-1.5hrs south of Guangzhou, the HQ of CASSpace. Last point and fun fact, the landing site for the rocket will be constructed within an aerospace theme park, space experience hall, and aerospace science education base.
For details on CAS Space’s spacecraft and comparison with the New Shepard, look forward to our 2d episode coming up this Wednesday!