Dongfang Hour - the China Space Podcast

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! Below are the news updates from the week of 31 May - 6 June: 

1. Launch of Fengyun-4B Meteorology Satellite 
2. Space Pioneer completes a full system hot test of Tianhuo-11 engine 
3. CAS Space Begins R&D on the ZK-2 Medium Lift Solid-Fueled Launch Vehicle
4. More details unveiled on the Tianzhou-2 spacecraft’s cargo 

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 24 - 30 May:

1) Launch of Tianzhou-2 Cargo Mission

2) China’s Efforts to ensure a successful deployment of Zhurong on the Martian ground

3) Euroconsult Webinar Takeaways

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, please find below the news update from the week of 17 - 23 May:

1) Another Fruitful Week for China’s Space Exploration Program

2) Completion of first batch of tests for the Tianhe Module

3) SASTIND Publishes New Regulations on Smallsat Manufacturing

4) Opinion Piece by Galaxy Space’s Xu Ming on China SatNet

Do remember to check out our weekly newsletter which does a broader coverage, going over pieces of news that we don't have time to discuss in the weekly podcast.

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 ! 

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Credits for images/visuals: CNSA, CAST, NASA JPL, Thomas Appéré

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 10 - 16 May:

1) Chinese Tianwen-1 Mars Missions attempts Atmospheric Entry and Landing of the Zhurong Rover
2) Chinese Launch Company Galactic Energy signs Collaboration Agreement with China Huateng Group to Develop International Launch Opportunities
3) iSpace Completes a Test of its Single-Layer Common Bulkhead Fuel Tank
4) CGWIC to open an office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to promote BeiDou Adoption

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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! Until then, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

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 3 - 9 May.

1) China’s Long March 5B first stage re-enters Earth’s atmosphere and (seemingly) lands in the Indian Ocean

10 days or so ago, China launched a Long March 5B rocket to put into orbit the core module of the Chinese Space Station. As mentioned last week, this rocket is a beast: it weighs over 800t at lift-off, can put up to 25t of payload into LEO, and is comparable to some of the largest operational rockets at the moment.

Now as there was no upper stage, the core stage delivered the Tianhe module directly to orbit, and then enters successive decaying orbits before re-entering the atmosphere. In the case of this launch, the Long March 5B splashed down in the Indian Ocean, without creating any damage.

2) JZYJ Completes Hot Test of Whole Engine

Launch startup JZYJ announced on Thursday 6 May that they had conducted a hot fire test of the fully-assembled Longyun engine. The Longyun engine is a 80t thrust gas generator cycle engine which burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen, and one of the two engines designed by China launch startup Jiuzhou Yunjian, the other one being the Lingyun engine which is a 10t thrust methalox engine (and which was the first engine they developed). This is one of the first test firings of the Longyun engine, with likely many more to come to test different levels of thrust and restarting the rocket engine multiple times, two key features for any VTVL reusable rocket.

3) CASSPACE announces B+ Funding Round

On 6 May CASSPACE announced a ~200M B+ round of funding. The announcement also noted that they have raised around RMB 600M in the past year from CAS, Yuexiu Capital, Zhongxin, Hunan Aviation and Aerospace Fund (湖南航空航天基金), etc. The article mentions that CASSPACE will have their first launch in H2 2021 of a solid-fueled rocket, and that their rocket is part of the CAS’s 13th Five-Year Plan Space Science and Technology Projects.  The rocket will have a payload to SSO of 1.5 tons, and has already completed a variety of tests.

A lot of money being put into CASSPACE recently, and indeed, this is not the only second-tier/second-generation launch company to be having a big year. 2021 has seen Tianbing Aerospace and JZYJ also raise more money while reaching various technological milestones, while also seeing new entrants such as “Rocket Group” of Huzhou (火箭派).

4) OneSpace “close to” raising a new round of funding for its Linglong solid and liquid fueled rockets, plans to IPO in 2022

We heard over the past week in the Chinese media that OneSpace was close to raising new round of funding. This seems to confirm the comeback of the rocket company, which was rumored to be in dire straits after failing the orbital launch attempt of its OSM solid-fueled rocket. 

As reported in the DFH episode of Feb 1-7, OneSpace had successfully raised a round of funding in September 2020, and successfully performed a suborbital launch of an OS-X (6B) rocket in February 2021. The fact that they may be able to raise another round of funding a mere 7-8 months after the previous round shows the renewed attractiveness of the company.

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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! Until then, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.  

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 26 April - 2 May.

1) Chinese Space Station: launch of the core Module Tianhe on-board Launch March 5B

On April 29 2021, China successfully sent the first module of the Chinese Space Station into orbit. The module was a 22.5-ton core module called Tianhe (天和, or “heavenly peace”). It was launched aboard a Long March 5B.

Tianhe is rightfully named the core module: it will be the centerpiece of the station which will host living quarters for the taikonauts, a bathroom, a kitchen, it will also be the main control unit (attitude, trajectory control), handles the fuel, power and air management systems. It is designed to host 3 taikonauts, and can hold up to 6 taikonauts during rotations. The Tianhe module will be joined next year by the Mengtian and Wentian experimental modules.
In 2024, the Chinese space station will also be joined by a space telescope called Xuntian, which will not be physically connected to the station but will evolve in the vicinity, and docking only for maintenance purposes.

2) Creation of a New Space SoE China SatNet

Major news update on Thursday 29 April which first came in the form of a press release from SASAC. The press release announced the creation of a China Satellite Networks Group Company, potentially SatNet for short, and puts that company under the direct administration of SASAC. SatNet is tasked with deploying and operating China’s LEO broadband constellation, widely speculated to be GuoWang. 

The creation of a SatNet company at this level of the SOE hierarchy is hugely significant. SatNet is, at least in theory, at the same level in the hierarchy as CASC, CASIC, and the big 3 telcos (all of which are also directly controlled by SASAC). If we compare this to the previous arrangement, you had China’s biggest broadband project being done by CASC (Hongyan), and another by CASIC (Hongyun), with both projects involving subsidiary companies with multiple shareholders (for example, Hongyan’s operating company, MacroNet, has shareholders including CASC, China Telecom, and CETC). This would have meant, presumably, that projects like Hongyan would have mostly used the technology of CASC, Hongyun would have used technology for CASIC, and the innovation and competition would have occurred in the long-term, after we find out how these constellations work.  On the other hand, the current situation with SatNet being at the same level as CASC, CASIC, the telcos, etc., means that it should, at least in theory, have a lot more freedom of choice in its sourcing options. 

3) Long March 6 launches a Batch of 9 Smallsats into Orbit, many payloads of interest

On April 27th, China launched an impressive launch share mission on-board a Long March 6, putting 9 satellites into orbit. These satellites were:

1. Qilu-1 and Qilu-4. Qilu-1 is a SAR satellite. Qilu-4 on the other hand is a high-resolution panchromatic EO satellite .
2. Foshan-1 is a high res panchromatic EO satellite meant to be a technology verification platform of the Foshan-based Jihua Laboratory.
3. Zhong’an Guotong-1 satellite (also called Hangsheng-1)
4. Guodian Gaoke’s Tianqi-9 IoT satellite, developed by ASES Space.
5. Origin Space’s NEO-1: a technology verification satellite, meant to trial the capture of a small celestial body and various orbital maneuvers.
6. Golden Bauhinia-1-01 and -02 are two remote sensing satellites.
7. Taijing-2 satellite, manufactued by Minospace, will be used primarily for remote sensing, and is the third satellite launched to be based on the MN-50 platform. 

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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 19 - 25 April.

1) The 6th China Space Day took place in Nanjing on Saturday April 24
Happy China Space Day everyone! This Saturday, China kicked off its 6th China Space Day, an annual celebration promoting China’s space heritage and future space programs. China Space Day is not actually one event, but actually hundreds of events all around the country, with many institutes, universities, and schools organizing space outreach events. This includes conferences, presentations, exhibitions, etc.

It’s also worth noting that among all the space events taking place in China, there is one big official event where all the space industry creme-de-la-creme get together, and which last two days. Every year CSD takes place in a different city, and this year it took place in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province. Speeches were delivered by Zhang Kejian (director of the CNSA), Wu Zhenglong (governor or Jiangsu), Han Liming (Secretary of the Nanjing Communist Party).

Finally, we saw an announcement of the name of China’s Mars rover, which is currently on-board the Tianwen-1 spacecraft in orbit around Mars, and which is supposed to land sometime in May. Among the ten names that were shortlisted by Chinese netizens, the name Zhurong (祝融) was officially announced by Wu Yanhua, the deputy director of CNSA. Zhurong is a god of fire in Chinese mythology.

2) ChinaSat Made Some Big Statements about China’s Constellation Plans
ChinaSat President Ge Yujin made some very interesting comments at an annual shareholders meeting for the company, as reported by Satellite World (卫星界) on Monday. The most interesting line was a reply to a question about Hongyan, namely a reporter pointing out that Hongyan was originally planned for completion in 2020, and asking for a status update.
Mr. Ge replied by pointing out that Hongyan was originally launched in 2018, and that it has since, along with CASIC’s Hongyun, come under national constellation system plan, with Hongyan understood to be undergoing major changes.

3) Spacety and Intane Optics complete China’s first private satellite-ground laser comms experiment
Two Chinese private companies, Spacety (a satellite manufacturer) and Intane Optics (optics subsystem manufacturer) announced in a press release on April 4th that they had achieved China’s first private laser satellite-ground comms. This satellite-ground laser comms experiment was done with the Beihangsat-1, a Spacety cubesat launched in November 2020 which was essentially a test satellite for space-based ADS-B, but it also carried the SG10-1 optical payload manufactured by Intane. The optical ground station was also provided by Intane, based in Nanjing.

4) Tianbing Aerospace Announces an Intelligent Rocket Manufacturing Base in Suzhou
Tianbing Aerospace, aka Space Pioneer, held a signing ceremony this week for an “Intelligent Rocket Manufacturing Base” in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou. The manufacturing base includes a total investment of RMB 4B, and aims at a capacity of 30 liquid rockets and 300 engines per year, with an estimated completion date of 2022. A few other interesting nuggets of info from the article: Tianbing Aerospace plans to launch its first Tianlong-1 liquid carrier rocket by the end of 2021, which, according to the exhibition shown at the signing ceremony, would make Tianbing the first medium-sized liquid-fueled rocket in China. Tianbing also claims to have pre-sold 10 rockets so far, and plans to begin batch manufacturing its rockets by next year. The company plans to IPO before the end of 2023.

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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 12 - 18 April.

1) CASIC Institute tests spaceplane propulsion technology
This week we saw an article published by the S&T Daily on a CASIC institute completing a precooling technology validation test, which is an essential technology for spaceplane propulsion.

According to the article, CASIC’s 3rd Academy’s 31st Institute, an institute specialized in aerospace propulsion, has been looking at precooling technology since June 2018. In past conferences, it has shown a technological roadmap where it shows the development of precooling technology over the early mid 2020s, and moving on to 15t and 30t combined-cycle engines which would power 2-stage spaceplane prototypes.

The latest test managed to cool air from 1000C down to -150C in 0.01 seconds. Undeniably a significant technical milestone for their “Yunlong” engine (which seems to be the name given to the engine).

2) Wu Weiren, chief-designer of China’s lunar exploration program, discusses China’s “Double One Hundred” goal
Wu Weiren, the chief-designer of China’s lunar exploration program, was interviewed this week by the official space industry media China Space News, in which he announced that China was aiming for a “Double One Hundred” goal (双百目标).
To understand this, there are several points to discuss:
Firstly, China likes anniversaries linked to its modern history, especially when its round numbers. Two of the big events are the founding of the CCP (1921), and the PRC (1949). There have been regularly large events to celebrate these dates, typically in 2019 a massive military parade on China’s National Day to celebrate the 70 years of the founding of the PRC.
2049 will be the 100th anniversary, and for that China is planning to send scientific probes in what is considered the boundaries of the heliosphere, 100 AU away from the Earth. And 100 AU on the 100th anniversary: thus the “double one hundred”.

3) A Report on China’s Aerospace Manufacturing Capabilities
This Friday, we saw SCMP publish an article about China’s aviation manufacturing capabilities, with the title telling you everything you need to know--”China’s Aviation Capabilities stuck at ‘low-end’ as military-civil fusion weighs on innovation”. 

Quite a lot to unpack from this article. First, the SCMP article quotes a report written by the Development Research Center of Shanghai and published on ThePaper.cn, a website owned by the Shanghai Government. I had a decent dig through ThePaper.cn and could not find the report, however it is a massive website that publishes a prodigious amount of news, so it’s possible I simply could not find it.

Relying therefore on the SCMP summary, the report was apparently very frank about China’s weaknesses in the aviation and aerospace sectors. In particular, the report cited specific key technologies, such as engines, airborne equipment, and new composite materials. The report also cites China’s airworthiness certification abilities as being weak, and “cannot be fully recognized internationally in the short-term”. 

The report brings up a handful of issues that we have highlighted in previous episodes of the Dongfang Hour. This includes emphasis on military-civil fusion, an overly large influence of SOEs on the development of innovation-driven sectors, and an “incomplete distribution mechanism” of shared risks and benefits. 

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

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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 5 - 11 April.

1）TCL: A New Tech Player in the Chinese Space Industry?
This week, we have seen signs hinting that TCL, a Chinese consumer electronics giant, is preparing to invest in the space industry.
Last week, they created a company named Moxing Semiconductors, based in Guangzhou, and which would likely focus on space industry integrated circuits. Looking up information on their incorporation in a corporate database, the scope of business includes "GNSS enhancement systems", "satellite remote sensing systems", "integrated satellite applications tech".
This is alongside things like "IC design & manufacturing."

2) A Few More Details Revealed on China’s Commercial Launch Site
This week, Zhejiang Province released its 14th Five-Year Plan. Included in the plan was a call to build a commercial spaceport, in Xiangshan, Ningbo, with a total investment of RMB 20B, of which RMB 12B would be invested during the 2021-2025 period. A few things to unpack:

First, it is still not 100% clear that the Ningbo Commercial Spaceport is the commercial spaceport referred to in China’s national Five-Year Plan, but the inclusion in the Zhejiang Province FYP seems to make this more likely. The scale of the prospective launch site is impressive, with plans for up to 100 launches per year and economic activity of RMB 100B. The launch site would be 67 sq km, of which 35 would be devoted to launch, and 32 would be devoted to an industrial area supporting the launch site.

Second, the location of Ningbo, with a massive port (the world’s 4th busiest by container traffic in 2019), and a long coastline, are beneficial for rocket launches. The port could conceivably make shipping rockets and related equipment to Ningbo via sea simpler, and the seaside location allows for rockets to be launched over the ocean as opposed to over land.

3) New (Pre-A) round of funding of 100M RMB from Aerospace Propulsion
Chinese commercial startup Aerospace Propulsion (宇航推进) raised 100 million RMB, (approx. 15 million USD) in a new round a funding, with the lead (and unique?) investor being Weifang Hangdong Aerospace Investment Corporation (潍坊航动空天投资). 

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! 

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