Taiz:Beijing China's privately developed Kinetica-2 Y2 liquid-propellant carrier rocket successfully launched 18 satellites into their planned orbits on Tuesday. This event marked a significant step in the participation of private aerospace enterprises in China's large-scale deployment of low-Earth orbit satellite internet constellations.
According to Wam, the rocket blasted off at 815 am on Tuesday from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Experimental Zone in Northwest China. It carried the 21st batch of satellites of the polar-orbit constellation under China's Qianfan satellite internet project, as reported by CAS Space, the rocket's developer.
This mission was the second flight of the Kinetica-2 rocket and its first deployment mission for a large-scale satellite internet constellation. It demonstrated the growing capabilities of China's private commercial space sector to support national space infrastructure projects.
Yang Haoliang, the chief designer and commander-in-chief of the Kinetica-2 rocket program, highlighted that China's low-orbit satellite internet has entered a critical period of intensive deployment, with a substantial demand for launch services as the country accelerates the construction of satellite constellations. He emphasized the importance of high-frequency, highly reliable, and low-cost launch capacity for ensuring the steady development of satellite internet infrastructure.
Yang noted that the latest mission represented a crucial operational test of the rocket's adaptability to large-scale satellite constellation deployment. Developed independently by CAS Space, Kinetica-2 is a liquid-propellant carrier rocket featuring what the company describes as China's first "universal booster core" configuration.
The rocket has a payload capacity of eight tons to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit and 12 tons to a 200-kilometer low-Earth orbit, making it suitable for large-scale satellite deployment and low-cost cargo transportation.
