Interesting developments in the commercial launch sector this week, from a company that has been in
total stealth mode over the past two years:
Linkspace. China’s
first commercial launch company announced the successful
completion of a first batch of tests of its first pump-fed engine, the Fengbao-1 (风暴一号, “Storm-1”). The tests were said to investigate “pump system efficiency, variable working condition capabilities, and engine throttling”. This type of more sophisticated engine will enable Linkspace to go beyond the several hundred meter VTVL hops it had performed previously, and build a suborbital and orbital rocket prototype.
The company’s choice to self-develop its own engines is rather surprising, since they had signed in the summer of 2019 a collaboration with Jiuzhou Yunjian, an engine manufacturer, to use their Lingyun 10t thrust methalox engine. The latest news about the Fengbao-1 may suggest that the collaboration did not go forward as planned.
On the topic of
Jiuzhou Yunjian, the company
completed a variable thrust test and engine gimballing test of its 10-ton Lingyun engine. The test occurred at its facility in Bengbu, Anhui Province, which as we have noted, is in the very far western portion of the Yangtze River Delta, a region home to a rapidly-developing cluster of commercial launch companies.
Another interesting development took place in Haiyang, Shandong Province, where
we saw the commencement of construction of a
rocket-launching vessel to be completed by 2022. With a length of 162.5m and a width of 40m, the rocket will aim to launch and recover medium-to-heavy thrust solid-fueled and small-to-medium thrust liquid-fueled rockets. The article notes that the China Oriental Spaceport was approved in July 2019, and that CALT subsidiary China Rocket signed an agreement with the city of Haiyang in December 2020 to manufacture solid-fueled rockets.
Additionally, Wednesday saw the
launch of 2x Yaogan-32 EO/SIGINT satellites on a Long March-2C from Jiuquan. This was the second pair of Yaogan satellites with the “-32” designation, with the first having been launched in 2018. As we have covered before on the Dongfang Hour, the past couple of years have seen a dramatic ramp-up in the launch of Yaogan satellites, with this being the 8th Yaogan launch of 2021, or which 6x have been trios, 1x has been single, and this most recent duo.
Last piece of launch-related news,
the 800th Institute of SAST completed one of the largest domestic LOX tanks, with a 3.8m diameter and a length of 21m. The 800th Institute, aka the Shanghai Institute of Precision Machinery, is specialised in advanced materials, and manufactures aerospace structures and components for carrier rockets.