ispace

This week, the guys take us on a shorter adventure talking about various company endeavors and future events. Along with the usual launch update, companies like Relativity Space, iSpace, and Draper all have plans and milestones for current and future missions. Blake gives us a brief rundown of Virgin Orbit's unfortunate outcome, but brings a sense of optimism back with NASA's 50th flight of Ingenuity.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).
This week, we discuss:

1) iSpace's asymmetrical Hyperbola-3A medium-lift rocket

2) First 5G network and LEO broadband satellite integration test performed in Jinan and Beijing

3) Mystery around the YF-90 (Long March 9) engine & new round of funding for Space Pioneer

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. 
Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 7 - 13 June: 

1. iSpace unveils details on the Hyperbola-3, which is officially validated and moved to the R&D phase
2. Emergence Dongfang Space (“Ospace”), yet another launch company
3. Additional Pictures from Tianwen-1 (orbiter shot of the lander)
4. Shenzhen Publishes Support for Satellite Manufacturing & Long March 2D Launch
5. CAS Xi’an to Launch Xiamen-1 Satellite
6. China Announces a MEO Broadband Constellation 

 Do remember to check out also our weekly newsletter which does broader coverage, going over pieces of news that we don't have time to discuss in the weekly podcast (https://www.dongfanghour.com/). 
Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up! 

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 29 March -  4 April.

1) Significant week from Chinese commercial launch companies
This week saw a lot of updates from Chinese launch companies, confirming that 2021 is going to be a landmark year in Chinese space.
First and foremost, we saw Landspace, one of China’s leading commercial launch companies, test its TQ-11 methalox engine for 4000s, its longest run so far (more than 1 hour!). This follows a batch of tests which included: simulating different regimes of flight, mixing ratios, autogenous pressurization & thrust vectoring.
iSpace, a Landspace competitor and also one of the leading private launch companies, tested its Jiaodian-1 liquid methalox engine during a 500s test, throttling the engine significantly (50%-100%) to simulate vertical take-off vertical landing.
JZJY similarly did a first hot fire engine test for their Longyun engine, which the 80t methalox 1st stage rocket engine developed by the company, and aims to be reusable multiple times.
CAS Space trialed a small 23kg VTVL prototype for future sea-based launch and landing. The test was mostly about testing the flight control characteristics: stability, robustness, horizontal and vertical movements.

2) TV Report from Hubei News on Wuhan space projects, and exclusive takeaways for Xingyun and Expace
The report refers to the heavy investment made by Expace, CASIC’s commercial launch spin-off, in building a digitalized industrial plant for batch-manufacturing Kuaizhou rockets, with cool shoots of 4 Kuaizhou rockets being assembled. The production rate of the factory is designed for 20 Kuaizhou rockets a year.
Perhaps more interesting (while slightly bizarre), the report mentions Expace’s liquid-fueled rockets, and notably that the “new digital facilities, which will enter service in the second half of 2021, will enhance Expace’s R&D capabilities for liquid-fueled rockets” (!).

On Xingyun, CASIC’s commercial narrowband constellation, some interesting updates came up as well in the report. Notably:
Xingyun VP Zhang Yong confirmed that a next batch of 6 Xingyun-3 satellites would be sent into orbit before the end of the year, on-board a Kuaizhou-11 rocket. This actually may represent a slight slip in the timeline previously announced at CCAF and in other conferences in 2020, where it was said that LeoBit, the operator of Xingyun, would launch 2x6 satellites into orbit.
Interestingly, the satellites are called Xingyun-3, meaning they are a 3rd generation of Xingyun satellites. Compared to the previous generation Xingyun-2 (2 satellites sent into space on-board a KZ-1A LV in 2020), the Xingyun-3 have “very significant technological upgrades”.

3) Geely plans group-level space headquarters in Nansha, Guangzhou
Geely announced a couple days ago it would establish space activities in the southern city of Guangzhou, in Nansha district.
First of all, this is big. Geely is not just "setting up some space subsidiary": this is Geely, a hundred-billion RMB revenue group, establishing its entire commercial space division headquarters in Guangzhou Nansha (将商业航天总部布局广州南沙).
The new entity, called Shikong Tansuo, would operate all Geely space subsidiaries: Geespace, Shanghe Aerospace, Xingkong Zhilian, and also interestingly SpaceOK (!).

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. We look forward to seeing you next time!

---------------------------------------- 

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

There are more than 100 Chinese commercial space companies, almost all having been establishing within the past 5 years. To pick one, or even a handful, as the leading Chinese commercial space companies is no easy task, with hoards to choose from, and with most of the companies being new enough to not actually be making money yet.

With that said, one of the few companies that would make the leaderboard on almost any China watcher’s space list is Landspace Technologies, likely China’s most well-funded commercial launch company. Founded in Beijing in 2015, Landspace has since raised ~US$400 million across 9 funding rounds, has grown to several hundred employees, and claims to be ~1 year away from launching its Zhuque-2 (ZQ-2) medium-lift rocket, a liquid methalox-powered rocket with capabilities of lifting several tons to LEO/SSO, and with eventual plans for reusability. 

On episode 6 of the Dongfang Hour, we sat down with Kevin Xu, Chief Marketing Officer at Landspace and one of the company’s early employees. Our conversation was wide-ranging, covering a broad variety of topics including, but not limited to:

•  Landspace’s business and target market
• Differences between working in a new space company such as Landspace, and a traditional space company, such as Kevin’s former employer China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC)
•  Perceptions of the space industry by Chinese university graduates, and Landspace’s evolving ability to attract top talent
• Landspace’s plans for reusability, fuel types, and general rocket strategy
•  A plethora of other topics, including fan questions related to Kevin’s multilingualism

Some Key Takeaways

Landspace has grown a lot in the past 5 years, as has the space sector in China. Kevin came to Landspace in 2017, and at that time, the company hired 1 fresh graduate during the course of the year. Today, the company receives hundreds of applications per year, and makes dozens of hires. People come to companies like Landspace for a number of reasons, but according to Kevin, one such reason is a desire to do something totally different. Compared to his previous role at CGWIC, which involved many similar projects (selling satellites abroad), Landspace offered the chance to build something new from the ground up. 

Despite a huge launch capacity of up to 4 tons on the ZQ-2, Landspace is not terribly concerned about filling their rockets—there’s a lot of demand out there, they say. While not directly mentioned in our discussion, a later webinar with Roger Zhang, CEO of Landspace, saw Zhang mention that Landspace is really only competing with themselves, in the sense that the company is developing a novel technology in China (liquid methalox launch capabilities), and their goal is to reach that point as soon as they can, irrespective of what anyone else is doing. Indeed, it sounds an awful lot like “if you build it, they will come”. 

Finally, we found out that Landspace has made some advancements on the international front, with Kevin mentioning that the company expects to announce good news in the coming weeks/months. With Landspace and many other Chinese companies starting to mature to the point of offering a product or service, it is highly likely that they will target international markets, often coming with turnkey packages or financing. 

With that being said, there are a lot more insights in the full interview, including Kevin’s thoughts on rocket cams, and detailed information on his linguistic prowess. Until next time, this is the Dongfang Hour, the Podcast on the Chinese Aero/space and Tech Sectors. 

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Our sincere apologies for the late upload of this episode, due to technical issues. Without further ado, the news update from the week of 7-13 December.

1) iSpace making progress in the development of Hyperbola 2
iSpace announced that they had completed the production of the fuel tank for the Hyperbola-2 rocket. The company’s Hyperbola-2 will use liquid methalox fuel, and is China’s first common bulkhead fuel tank for rockets above 3m diameter.

iSpace also completed a week earlier a series of supersonic wind tunnel tests for the vertical landing phase, a crucial moment of the flight with complex aerodynamics and instability.

2) Launch of Long March 11 with 2 CAS satellites
Last week, China saw a launch of a Long March 11 rocket, the 3rd launch of such a rocket in China in 2020. This launch received less cover overall, as it concurred with the Chang’e 5 hype that was taking place at the same time.
This launch of LM-11 took place at Xichang on the 9th of December, and put into orbit 2 smallsats of the GECAM mission (aka Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-Sky Monitor), and initiated by the CAS Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing.
Designated KX-08A and KX-08B, each satellite will embark a number of instruments to detect gamma/x wave bursts in the universe.

3) Great article on C919 Suppliers
The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank based in DC, published on Dec. 7 a good piece on the Chinese commercial aviation industry, and notably on the poor performance of COMAC, from both an industrial and technical point of view.
According to CSIS, while China admittedly has done admirably in turning itself into a high-tech superpower in a number of industries, commercial aviation is not part of them.

To justify this point, CSIS points to some of the recurring problems of COMAC, including:
- The poor performance of COMAC A/C
- The significant delays that the programs have experienced
- The poor industrial productivity (based on the annual production rate)
- The troubles with certification
- And its reliance on foreign suppliers

All in all, a great piece that we recommend to our viewers, although admittedly we feel that in some areas the paper is overly pessimistic/negative about Chinese commercial aerospace.

4) National Radio and Television Administration Announcement
China’s NRTA announced this week plans for modernization of the country’s broadcast sector. This includes several key phrases, namely “smart business”, “UltraHD/4K”, and also “Satellite internet/converged two-way services” (融合双向业务).

The announcement also hits on the convergence of TV and internet access, that is, most TV can be delivered via internet access. Other points of note in the announcement included a call to build a cloud platform for satellite broadcast (建设直播卫星云平台), and to develop “two-way communications” for satellite broadcast that allow for things like online shopping, smart homes, and digitization of small towns.

Overall, the announcement should be taken as an indication that China wants to modernize its relatively archaic linear broadcast industry.

5) Dongfang Hour reaches 100+ subscribers!
Last but not least, the Dongfang Hour channel has reached 100+ subscribers this week, with a 10% jump in the last few days. While this remains a modest figure, we would like to address a big thanks to our viewers for their support, and hope to bring more valuable content on Chinese aerospace and tech in 2021!

---------------------------------------------

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/ 

Welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! This week we bring you updates on Galactic Energy, China’s maritime satcom industry and the product offerings therein, and China’s role in the regional EO market.

1) Galactic Energy completed a RMB 200 million Series A funding round in September, a round that was announced last week. This is the company’s first round in ~11 months, having raised RMB 150M in Oct 2019. The company has now raised ~RMB 500 million across 4 rounds, a feat made even more remarkable by the fact that they were founded just under 3 years ago. Funding will go towards accelerating the development of the company’s Pallas-1 and Ceres-1 rockets. Galactic Energy is now quite likely one of the top 4 commercial launch companies in China, along with Landspace, iSpace, and Expace.

This status in the “Big Four’ of China’s commercial launch sector was enhanced just a couple of days ago, when on November 7th 2020, Galactic Energy held the inaugural launch of its solid rocket the Ceres-1, becoming the 2nd private company in China to put a satellite into orbit after iSpace. Ceres-1, much like iSpace’s Hyperbola-1, is a small rocket with a capacity of 350 kg into LEO. While similar in propulsion technology, there are some definite slight differences between the two rockets (separation method, attitude control). Galactic Energy’s inaugural launch on the 7th was also noteworthy in that it was commercial, with the Ceres-1 rocket launching the Tianqi-11 satellite for Guodian Gaoke, a satellite manufacturer that plans to launch and operate the Tianqi constellation. 

2) In the maritime space, we saw announced this week that the CASIC 2nd Academy, in partnership with the China Unicom Research Institute and the government of Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province, completed China’s first “Low Orbit Broadband Satellite + 5G Maritime” test. While the article, which was originally published by the CASIC 2nd academy, does not explicitly mention Hongyun, the phrasing of LEO broadband satellite would almost certainly imply that the tests were using the Hongyun test satellite, launched in late 2018.
Separately, as part of China’s 11/11 “Singles Day”, a huge online shopping day, we saw SinoSat release its 11/11 promotions for its Haixingtong maritime satcom service, which included 200MB of free data upon signing up, RMB 800 per year for unlimited voice. SinoSat is a ChinaSat subsidiary with focus on several high-value verticals with global requirements, i.e. maritime satcom, and has been building out a maritime satcom service for several years using satellite capacity from ChinaSat among others.

3) Finally, the Asia-Oceania Group on Earth Observations (AO GEO) held a meeting in Changzhou early in the week. The event was attended by 15 countries and several international organizations. “China is playing an important role in the Asia-Oceania region, with the second highest number of remote sensing satellites in the world and its application of Earth observation shifting from experimental use to business services”, said Wang Qi’an, the director of the National Remote Sensing Center of China

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. If you’ve made it this far, we thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time! 

---------------------------------------------

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/