Earlier today, as of writing on the 12th of July 2023, LandSpace's Zhuque-2 successfully flew to low Earth orbit from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the Gobi Desert in northern China. This is the first time LandSpace's has made it to orbit and the first time methalox, liquid methane and liquid oxygen, has been used to fuel a successful orbital launch, beating United Launch Alliance's Vulcan and SpaceX's Starship-Superheavy to orbit. The Zhuque-2 carried no payloads on this launch attempt but may start launching customer payloads soon.
What is Zhuque-2?
Zhuque-2 is LandSpace's currently in-development methalox, liquid methane and liquid oxygen, liquid fuel two-stage rocket aiming to lift 4,000 kilograms into a 200-kilometer orbit or 2,000 kilograms into a sun-synchronous orbit. The Zhuque-2 rocket is powered by four TQ-12 Methane-Oxygen engines on the first stage providing 67 tons of thrust each for a combined 268 tons of thrust. The second stage of the rocket is powered by a single vacuum-optimized TQ-12 engine, producing 80 tons of thrust, and a TQ-11 Methane-Oxygen engine acting as a vernier thruster, producing 8 tons of thrust, for a combined 88 tons of thrust.
China's methane-powered rocket successfully launched pic.twitter.com/A8sJiB4fmI
— ZHENG YIBING (@zheng_yibing) July 12, 2023
Who is LandSpace?
LandSpace Technology Corporation is a Chinese private space launch provider based out of the city of Beijing and was founded by Zhang Changwu in 2015. The company launched its first rocket, Zhuque-1, on the 27th of October 2018 but failed to reach orbit. Zhueque-1 was a three-stage all solid propellant rocket that was aiming to lift 300 kilograms into orbit until its cancellation in favour of Zhuque-2. Its second launch was on the 14th of December 2022 with the Zhuque-2 rocket. LandSpace has so far launched all of its rockets from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the Gobi Desert in northern China.
