On 23 July the People’s Liberation Army announced that it had launched, on the previous day, nine satellites on one Gravity-1 rocket from sea. The successful launch was conducted off the coast of Shanghai.
The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre launched the commercial rocket at 1054 Beijing Time, placing the nine satellites into their designated orbits. This flight marks Gravity-1’s first open-sea launch and China’s first commercial sea-based launch in the East China Sea off the Yangtze River Delta.
The China Military Bugle stated, “Unrestricted by fixed maritime zones, the mobile launch platform allows for flexible site selection, enhancing launch efficiency and promoting a diversified layout for China’s space launch capabilities. Project officials noted that the mission further verified the adaptability of the rocket model’s solid-strap-on configuration to complex sea conditions and its extended standby capability.”
The medium-lift Gravity-1 rocket was developed by the Chinese commercial aerospace company, Orien Space. It has a low-Earth-orbit payload capacity of 6.5 tonnes and is capable of delivering a 4.2-tonne payload to a 500-km sun-synchronous orbit, catering to various multi-satellite deployment missions.
The PLA said the deployed satellites will serve “diverse purposes, ranging from all-weather Earth observation and commercial industry services to technical test.”
Source: PLA
