Tag: Guowang
-
China successfully debuts tallest rocket, LandSpace prepares for second landing attempt
China kicked off a busy month with three missions for a single internet constellation in the span of nearly four days. Another maiden launch saw the nation’s tallest rocket successfully reach orbit, though the debut raised eyebrows with the absence of airspace notices ahead of the mission. Similarly, its first asteroid-sampling mission appears to have…
-
China’s Landspace Secures Launch Contracts for Guowang and Qianfan Megaconstellations
Chinese commercial launch startup Landspace has secured formal contracts to launch satellites for China’s two main low Earth orbit megaconstellation projects, a move expected to help ease launch capacity constraints as deployment accelerates. Chinese media reported on Jan. 7 that Landspace had won launch service contracts for the Guowang constellation, led by state-owned China Satellite…
-
China’s Guowang megaconstellation is more than another version of Starlink
US defense officials have long worried that China’s Guowang satellite network might give the Chinese military access to the kind of ubiquitous connectivity US forces now enjoy with SpaceX’s Starlink network. It turns out the Guowang constellation could offer a lot more than a homemade Chinese alternative to Starlink’s high-speed consumer-grade broadband service. China has…
-
Chinese launch cadence picks up as Tianlong-3 prepares for launch
China’s Space Pioneer is preparing for the maiden launch of its Tianlong-3, a vehicle similar in design, size, and payload capacity to the Falcon 9, just over a year since the dramatic static fire of its first stage. This is set to be the first of several commercially developed reusable launchers set to make their…
-
Launch Roundup: SpaceX to launch Crew-11 to ISS; ISRO and NASA launch new SAR satellite
With 11 launches scheduled worldwide, this week’s launch roundup is among the busiest of 2025 so far. SpaceX is expected to conduct four missions with the workhorse Falcon 9, including the crewed Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station. Blue Origin’s New Shepard took six humans to suborbital space this week. Internationally, the first-ever domestically…
-
Chinese launch cadence accelerates, Tianwen-2 prepares for launch
This month has seen the launches of three different commercial Chinese rockets, and the return-to-flight of a rocket that last flew in mid-2021. China has also begun deploying the world’s first space-based computing satellite constellation. Meanwhile, preparations are underway for China’s second interplanetary mission — a milestone two-part journey to return samples from an asteroid…
-
Chang Zheng 12, ZhuQue-2E fly maiden missions; Hainan spaceport and mega constellations expand
In late November, two new Chinese rockets took their maiden flights within four days of each other, with the Chang Zheng 12 and Landspace’s enhanced ZhuQue-2E successfully completing their missions. This week saw the first launch of the Chang Zheng 5B heavy-lift vehicle in over two years, carrying an initial batch of satellites for another…