HELSINKI — Chinese rocket maker Sepoch has carried out a first vertical liftoff and splashdown landing ahead of a potential orbital launch attempt later this year.
The Yuanxingzhe-1 (YXZ-1) verification rocket lifted off from an elevated steel structure at the Haiyang spaceport, Shandong province, at 4:40 p.m. Eastern (2040 UTC) May 28.
Video of the test shows the test article soaring vertically from a launch pad, before shutting down its engines at around 2.5 kilometers in altitude. The engines relight during free descent during free descent and the rocket performs a controlled, propulsive vertical descent and soft splashdown in waters off the coast of Haiyang.
Sepoch, officially Beijing Jianyuan Technology Co., Ltd., and also referred to as Space Epoch, declared the test a “complete success” in a statement. It noted eight phases of flight: ignition and liftoff, full-thrust ascent, variable thrust adjustment, engine shutdown, free descent, engine reignition, deceleration and hovering, and soft splashdown.
The test article used thin-walled stainless steel and had a diameter of 4.2 meters, a total height of 26.8 meters and a takeoff mass of about 57 tons, according to Space Epoch. The test lasted 125 seconds and reached around 2.5 kilometers in altitude. The test article used Longyun methane-liquid oxygen engines provided by commercial firm Jiuzhou Yunjian (JZYJ).
Sepoch says the test has laid a solid foundation for the first full flight of the YXZ-1, also known as Hiker-1 in English, later this year.
Hiker-1 is designed to be reusable and carry up to 10,000 kilograms of payload to low Earth orbit, according to previous reports.
The company last year entered a strategic partnership with satellite operator Shifang Xinglian to build a constellation of medium Earth orbit satellites. It has also partnered with Taobao, Alibaba’s major e-commerce platform, to explore the feasibility of rocket-based express delivery.
It is not the first vertical takeoff and soft splashdown attempt in China this year. In January the state-owned Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) carried out a higher-altitude test for its planned reusable Long March 12 series rocket, again using engines from JZYJ, attempting to reach an altitude of around 75 km.
While unofficial footage was posted online, showing an apparently nominal ascent phase, the company has not provided any official statements on the outcome of the test.
Hiker-1 is among a number of reusable rockets being developed in China which could debut this year, either in expendable mode, or attempting first stage reusability from the start.
These include Landspace’s stainless steel Zhuque-3, SAST’s Long March 12A, Tianlong-3 from Space Pioneer, Hyperbola-3 from iSpace and Galactic Energy’s Pallas-1.
