China’s national launch rate remains impressive. Its 62nd launch of the year was of the Hyperbola-1 (aka SQX-1) rocket which took place at 0700 GMT on 17 December. . The launch took place from the Jiuquan launch site in Inner Mongolia. Aboard was the Dear-1 prototype...
A Long March 5/YZ-2 rocket was successfully launched from Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre, Hainan Island on 15 December at 1341 GMT. The payload is reported to be Yaogan-41, a high orbit optical remote sensing satellite. Chinese state television (CCTV) later...
Launching from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China, a Long March 2F rocket has reportedly successfully carried a Chinese reusable spaceplane into LEO. There has been no official confirmation of the launch time from Chinese sources but observers believe lift-off...
While staging in rocketry has been around since the 1940s, culminating in the first orbital success with Vostok rocket’s flight of Sputnik 1, stages were not truly reusable until the arrival of the Space Shuttle in 1981. Even then, one major part of its stack – the...
At 0158 GMT on 10 December three Yaogan 39-05 reconnaissance satellites related to signals intelligence (Yaogan 39-05-A, -B and -C) were launched on a Long March 2D/2 (CZ-2D/2) rocket launched from Xichang in China. China has never formally admitted to launching...
Space insurers are still licking their wounds after what has been the worst year in over two decades in terms of claims, with a total of close to US$1 billion for the industry. In the early part of the year there were few insurance losses and, although they received a...
