Tag: Lijian-1

China launches six satellites

9:25 am

China yesterday placed six satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Kinetica-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

China claims this was a commercial launch, taking place from the launch facility at Jiuquan dedicated to commercial launches, but the rocket was built by CAS Space, a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is also solid-fueled, which means it is likely derived from missile technology, something that the Chinese government will supervise quite closely.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

60 SpaceX
30 China
6 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 60 to 48.

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Chinese solid-fueled rocket fails during launch

9:26 am

The commercial division of a Chinese space agency, dubbed CAS Space, late yesterday experienced a launch failure of its solid-fueled Kinetica-1 rocket, lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

A statement by the pseudo-company described the failure tersely:

We can confirm that the first two stages were nominal. Stage 3 lost attitude three seconds after ignition and the self-destructing mechanism was activated.

Nothing was said about where the first two stages crashed inside China, or whether they landed near habitable areas.

According to the first link above, this was the second launch failure by China in 2024, which is incorrect. This was the third launch failure for China (see here and here for previous two). That article also says this was the 68th total launch this year, suggesting China has completed 66 successful launches. This does not jive with my count, which presently says China has had 64 successful orbital launches this year. I suspect the two additional launched might have been suborbital tests — such as first stage hop tests (here, here, and here) — which I do not include in these totals. It also might be including the accidental launch of one first stage during a static fire test when it broke free and launched itself unintentional.

More recent information from my readers (see the comments below) suggests that, though the numbers above are not correct, my own count for China’s total successful orbital launches needs adjusting as well. I had marked a March 13th Chinese launch as a failure because the satellites were not placed in their proper orbit. However, using their thrusters engineers were eventually able to get them into place and they are operating. I have therefore increased China’s totals below by one.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

134 SpaceX
65 China
17 Russia
14 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 154 to 97, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 134 to 117.

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China launches five satellites

9:02 am

China today successfully launched five satellites, its Kinetica-1 rocket (Lijian-1 in Chinese) lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

China’s state-run press generally attempts to describe this rocket as commercial and built by one of its pseudo-companies, but in this case that is even more dishonest. CAS Space was created from a government space division as a separate subsidiary, and thus is wholly controlled, funded, and owned by that agency. Unlike China’s other pseudo-companies, it didn’t even bother to go through the dance of raising investment capital or winning contracts.

Nonetheless, company officials now boast — after this fourth launch of this rocket — they are about to begin launching monthly. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

Meanwhile, China also today publicly announced a successful ICBM test launch into the Pacific, the first time it has made such an test or public announcement in four decades. It released almost no details, however, including where the missile was launched or where it splashed down.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

94 SpaceX
43 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 110 to 65, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 94 to 81.

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Chinese pseudo-company launches its rocket for 2nd time

9:17 am

The Chinese pseudo-company CAS Space yesterday successfully launched its rocket Lijian-1 rocket for second time, lifting off from China’s interior Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert and carrying a record (for China) of 26 cubesats.

As was usual for China, its state-run press revealed almost nothing about the satellites. Nor did it provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages crash-landed in China, or if they did any damage or landed near habitable areas.

This pseudo-company is actually even more pseudo than other Chinese pseudo-companies, as it is a direct spin-off created by the government Chinese Academy of Sciences, with most of its investors directly linked to that academy.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

38 SpaceX
21 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 43 to 21 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 43 to 37, with SpaceX by itself beating those other nations combined 38 to 37.

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China launches new rocket

9:06 am

The new colonial movement: The Chinese Academy of Science today successfully completed the first launch of Lijian-1, a new four stage solid fueled rocket, placing six satellites into orbit.

The Chinese state press announcement is here. I am using the name of the rocket from this source.

The rocket is an upgrade of a “road-mobile” ICBM, and can place two tons into orbit, making it the largest solid-fueled rocket in China’s arsenal of rockets. It launched from a pad built especially for it at China’s interior Jiuquan spaceport, which means it dumped its first, second, and maybe its third stages on Chinese territory.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

33 SpaceX
25 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
4 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 46 to 25, and the entire globe combined 46 to 41.

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