by HELSINKI – A Chinese state-owned company conducted a rocket flight late Saturday to test its reentry and land burns without announcing the outcome.
The Longxing-2 test article lifted off around 10:00 PM Eastern on January 18 (03:00 UTC, January 19) from an improvised launch area near Haiyang, Shandong province.
Longxing-2 is believed to be a test article for the Long March 12A reusable launch vehicle being developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST). The rocket is designed to simulate the first stage of a reusable flight, reaching about 75 kilometers before performing a reentry burn and a powered descent and splashdown into the Yellow Sea.
Amateur footage taken near the launch area showed the rocket rising very slowly from the tower and performing an ascent phase with no apparent deviations. The test was intended to build on a successful vertical take-off and vertical landing (VTVL) test at an altitude of 12 kilometers, conducted in June 2024.
SAST published results and images of the test in June, but has remained silent on the 75km attempt until now, having not published results or details of the flight more than 24 hours after launch. The lack of official updates raises questions about the test’s success, which could indicate problems during the reentry or landing phase.
Still wait for the official result. pic.twitter.com/XyQLWon0rO
— Ace of Razgriz (@raz_liu) January 19, 2025
State-owned SAST is one of several entities in China developing reusable launch vehicles. Reusability – first demonstrated by SpaceX for orbital launches – could help China reduce costs and increase flight frequency. This seems crucial for the country to be able to build mega-constellations such as Guowang and Thousand Sails, and could also play a role in manned lunar, lunar infrastructure and space-based solar energy projects.
China made 68 launch attempts last year, all using expendable rockets. A large number of these were created by older, highly toxic hypergolic missiles from the Long March series. The country targeted about 100 launches, including state-owned and commercial companies.
The Longxing-2 test article is believed to be powered by methane liquid oxygen engines developed by commercial company Jiuzhou Yunjian (JZYJ). SAST and JZYJ collaborated on previous secret vertical take-off and vertical landing tests.
SAST is a division of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s top aerospace contractor. CASC is said to have made the methane-liquid-oxygen engine technology available to commercial entities to develop engines, which SAST appears to be using.
CASC, meanwhile, is developing more powerful and complex full-combustion methalox engines for its Long March 9 super-heavy rocket.
SAST first launched its expendable kerosene liquid oxygen Long March 12 in November 2024. The 12A will also be a 3.8-meter diameter launch vehicle, but modified for reusability.
The Long March 12A is just one of several reusable launch vehicles being developed in China. CASC is developing the reusable Long March 10 series for human spaceflight, as well as the aforementioned Long March 9 and 12A.
Commercial entities are working on the first flights of several rockets this year, including the Zhuque-3 (Landspace), Tianlong-3 (Space Pioneer), Pallas-1 (Galactic Energy) and Kinetica-2 (CAS Space). They are all intended to be made reusable at various stages. These are among a wider range of Chinese launch vehicles set to make their debut flights in 2025.
China is also expanding its spaceports to help ease a bottleneck in access to launch infrastructure. This includes the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Area at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in northwest China, and the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site on Hainan Island, in southern China. The latter has two launch pads ready, and work on the third and fourth platforms will be accelerated this year, China News Service said, January 17. The spaceport could accommodate up to 10 platforms in the future. Haiyang, where the Longxing-2 was launched, is home to China’s naval launch facilities. Last week it hosted a launch of a Jielong-3 solid-propellant rocket and aims to host about 10 launches by 2025.
