The Zhuque-2, a carrier rocket from LandSpace, blasted off at 09:00 on Wednesday morning from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert in China. The rocket successfully delivered a test payload into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), the first in the world to make such an achievement.
The first launch attempt of the Zhuqu-2 in December 2022 had failed.
The launch was the second attempt by Beijing-based firm LandSpace – one of the earliest companies in China’s commercial space sector – to launch the Zhuque-2, and its success beat out US rivals in developing what may become the next generation of launch vehicles, which are considered to be less polluting, safer, cheaper and a suitable propellant for a reusable rocket.
News of LandSpace’s successful launch – which places China ahead of rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin in the race to develop space vehicles fuelled by methane.
This post was published on 12 July 2023 13:56
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