Chinese pseudo-company completes successful hop test of rocket
YXZ-1 completing soft splashdown vertically.
Click for movie.
The Chinese pseudo-company Space Epoch (also called SEpoch) announced today a successfully hop test yesterday where its prototype YXZ-1 grasshopper-type test prototype completed a vertical launch to an altitude of about 1.5 miles, shut down its engines, then relit them to achieve a soft splashdown over water.
The test article used thin-walled stainless steel and had a diameter of 4.2 meters, a total height of 26.8 meters and a takeoff mass of about 57 tons, according to Space Epoch. The test lasted 125 seconds and reached around 2.5 kilometers in altitude. The test article used Longyun methane-liquid oxygen engines provided by [pseudo]-commercial firm Jiuzhou Yunjian (JZYJ).
Sepoch says the test has laid a solid foundation for the first full flight of the YXZ-1, also known as Hiker-1 in English, later this year.
Without question China’s pseudo-companies as well as its official state space divisions are aggressively pursuing reusable rockets, far more aggressively than any companies (other than SpaceX) in the west. There are at least nine Chinese pseudo-companies or government agencies testing rockets that can land vertically (Space Epoch, Landspace, Deep Blue, Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Space Pioneer, Ispace, Galactic Energy, Linkspace), with eight having attempted hop tests with mixed results.
In the west, only SpaceX is flying reusable rockets. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is supposed to be reusable, but it has only launched once and on that flight its first stage failed to land successfully. The company has only done hop flights with its small suborbital New Shepard spacecraft. Rocket Lab is building its reusable Neutron rocket, but it also has never done any hop tests with that rocket. Stoke Space plans a completely reusable rocket, with the second stage returning as well, and has done one short hop test of a prototype of that stage. Other rocket companies are designing or developing such rockets, but none have done any hop tests.
In general China’s rocket industry appears far ahead in this race.
Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.
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YXZ-1 completing soft splashdown vertically.
Click for movie.
The Chinese pseudo-company Space Epoch (also called SEpoch) announced today a successfully hop test yesterday where its prototype YXZ-1 grasshopper-type test prototype completed a vertical launch to an altitude of about 1.5 miles, shut down its engines, then relit them to achieve a soft splashdown over water.
The test article used thin-walled stainless steel and had a diameter of 4.2 meters, a total height of 26.8 meters and a takeoff mass of about 57 tons, according to Space Epoch. The test lasted 125 seconds and reached around 2.5 kilometers in altitude. The test article used Longyun methane-liquid oxygen engines provided by [pseudo]-commercial firm Jiuzhou Yunjian (JZYJ).
Sepoch says the test has laid a solid foundation for the first full flight of the YXZ-1, also known as Hiker-1 in English, later this year.
Without question China’s pseudo-companies as well as its official state space divisions are aggressively pursuing reusable rockets, far more aggressively than any companies (other than SpaceX) in the west. There are at least nine Chinese pseudo-companies or government agencies testing rockets that can land vertically (Space Epoch, Landspace, Deep Blue, Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Space Pioneer, Ispace, Galactic Energy, Linkspace), with eight having attempted hop tests with mixed results.
In the west, only SpaceX is flying reusable rockets. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is supposed to be reusable, but it has only launched once and on that flight its first stage failed to land successfully. The company has only done hop flights with its small suborbital New Shepard spacecraft. Rocket Lab is building its reusable Neutron rocket, but it also has never done any hop tests with that rocket. Stoke Space plans a completely reusable rocket, with the second stage returning as well, and has done one short hop test of a prototype of that stage. Other rocket companies are designing or developing such rockets, but none have done any hop tests.
In general China’s rocket industry appears far ahead in this race.
Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Stoke Space has done a hop test.
Mike Borgett: You are right. That short hop was in 2023. I will amend my post.
Blue Origin has been successfully flying and landing New Shepard for quite a while now. It’s nothing spectacular compared to SpaceX but they do have one rocket that they’re launching, landing and re-using, making them the only ones other than SpaceX to do it repeatedly with a booster. That’s really a fair amount of rocket experience even if it is sub-orbital.
Tim: Oy. I find New Shepard so uninspiring these days that I tend to forget it even exists. You are right of course. I have revised my post accordingly.
As far as I know, Blue Origin’s New Glenn is the only rocket that has attempted what SpaceX routine achieves: Put something in orbit, then throw the booster into “reverse” to get it back down to the ground. An orbital-class booster is moving downrange at roughly 4000 miles per hour at stage separation, and a successful “catch” means that the booster must be back on the ground at a complete stop about 8 minutes or so after launch. That’s a very big step beyond a “hop.”
I have no information about what caused New Glenn’s failed landing attempt, but it’s probably similar to what SpaceX encountered with the Starship booster – fuel slosh in the boostback burn caused ice in the fuel lines and cavitation in the pumps from bubbles. This is all part of the transition from a simple “up, then straight back down” hop to landing an orbital booster.
New Glenn is the only rocket of any size to attempt Boostback.
Perhaps a narrow core with heftier kerolox exhaust products is better than a wider methalox booster.
There may be something else to look at…
Falcon, is narrow, strong—and perhaps easier to work around what with horizontal processing.
With Starship/SuperHeavy, you are always working the Sistine Chapel.
That may all the difference between “get ur done!” and “good enuf–I’m wore out.”
Diane Wilson wrote: “That’s a very big step beyond a ‘hop.’ ”
Very true. Starship does not do the same type of reentry burn that the Falcons do, so its engine chamber is protected by a heat shield to prevent the glowing-red heat from damaging the internal equipment and structure. This heat, no doubt, is why engineers used to believe that a reusable booster stage was impossible, or at least uneconomical.
The Falcons use propulsive reentry, a short burn just as it reaches the thicker part of the atmosphere, in order to slow down and avoid the stresses of the atmosphere in the engine compartment.
Engineers used to make their rockets perform to their maximum capabilities, de-emphasizing the economics of reusability. A retro-burn after stage separation, another at the interface with the thicker part of the atmosphere, and a third for landing required saving propellants that could have been used to put more payload into orbit. Maximizing payload was the engineering priority, not minimizing cost per pound (kilogram) placed in orbit. Too much unused propellant is probably one reason why engineers used to believe that a reusable booster stage was, at best, uneconomical. The poor performance of the Space Shuttle and its reusable solid rocket motors is definitely a reason to believe reusability was uneconomical. This was so obvious that when the Shuttle was to be retired, expendable rockets were designed to replace it.
I think we are seeing how difficult it can be to develop and operate large rockets and spacecraft. There is a reason why airplanes never got much larger than the Hughes H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose). Runways and airport gates grew to accommodate larger aircraft, but it seems that the practical size limit has been reached.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_aircraft
Rockets for launch from the surface of the Earth are likely also limited in size. How much larger than Starship is practical? That is a good question, and one I hope we answer, someday. Starship is 9 meters (30 feet) diameter, but SpaceX had first proposed a 12m diameter rocket and spacecraft.
New Glenn is only 7m diameter, so Blue Origin should be having fewer problems with the size than SpaceX is having with Starship, but maybe they are having more problems than SpaceX had with Falcon 9 (12ft, or 3.7m).