Tag: Lijian-1

China early today successfully placed five satellites into orbit, its new solid-fueled Lijian-1 rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

This was the third flight of this rocket. No word on where its lower stages crashed inside China.

The 2024 launch race:

6 SpaceX
6 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Iran
1 Japan

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.