Year's first private rocket mission takes off

Galactic Energy, a private rocket maker in Beijing, conducted the sixth sea-based launch of its Ceres 1 carrier rocket on Friday morning, marking the first private space mission in China in 2026.

The company said in a news release that the rocket blasted off at 4:10 am from a mobile launch platform in the Yellow Sea off the eastern province of Shandong and sent four satellites into a low-Earth orbit about 850 kilometers above Earth.

The satellites were built by Guodian Gaoke, a Beijing-based private satellite operator, for its Tianqi network, which now has 41 satellites and global coverage after the latest launch. The network collects data for the internet of things and has been used in fields such as forestry, agriculture, tourism, power generation and environmental protection, according to Galactic Energy.

The Ceres 1 model performed its maiden flight in November 2020 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, becoming the second privately developed Chinese carrier rocket to successfully complete an orbital mission, after i-Space's SQX 1.

The solid-propellant Ceres 1 model stands about 20 meters tall, with a diameter of 1.4 meters. It has a liftoff weight of 33 metric tons. It can deliver a single 300-kilogram satellite or multiple satellites with a combined weight of 300 kg into a 500-km sun-synchronous orbit. It can also carry a 350-kg payload to a low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 200 km.

To date, 21 of the rocket's 23 flights have been successful, placing 89 commercial satellites into orbit.

Galactic Energy is preparing to conduct the debut mission of its Ceres 2, a larger model of solid-propellant carrier rocket, at the Jiuquan spaceport, according to the company.

Besides Galactic Energy, other private Chinese rocket makers are also planning the maiden flights of their new rockets, including Orienspace's Gravity 2, Deep Blue Aerospace's Nebula 1, and the TL 3 from Space Pioneer.

In another development, China launched a Long March 2C rocket on Thursday afternoon, placing a remote-sensing satellite for Algeria into orbit, according to China Great Wall Industry, the project's contractor.

The rocket lifted off at 12:01 pm from the Jiuquan center and successfully deployed the AlSat-3A satellite into its preset orbit, the company said. China Great Wall Industry is the overseas trading arm of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.

Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, another CASC subsidiary, AlSat-3A is designed to collect data and images to support land-use planning as well as disaster prevention and mitigation.

Under a contract signed in July 2023 between China Great Wall Industry and the Algerian Space Agency, China will deliver two optical remote-sensing satellites to the North African country and provide ground systems, training, and other support services. AlSat-3A is the first satellite delivered under the agreement.

The launch marks a new milestone in space cooperation between China and Algeria, following the successful launch of the Alcomsat-1 communications satellite in December 2017.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn