CAS Space's Long March 2nd Rocket Successfully Launches Space Test Vehicle

On March 30 at 19:00, China Great Wall Industry Corporation’s ZTL-2 YL-2 [Lijian-2] “YI-1” rocket·International Textile Capital Line successfully launched from the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone, precisely placing the New Journey 01 satellite, New Journey 02 satellite, and TianShi satellite 01 into their planned orbits, with the launch mission achieving a complete success.

Among them, the New Journey 02 satellite is a space experiment spacecraft. It has a 3-year in-orbit flight capability, the total spacecraft mass is 4.2 tons, and it uses a single-bay integrated configuration design.

First Flight of the Lijian-2 Launch Vehicle

This mission marks the first flight of the Lijian-2 launch vehicle and the 12th launch of the Lijian series launch vehicles. It indicates that the Lijian family has once again reached new highs in terms of heavy-lift capability, low cost, and high launch frequency.

The Lijian-2 is China’s first launch vehicle with a “Universal Booster Core” (Common Booster Core, CBC) configuration. This rocket’s universal core stage has a diameter of 3.35 meters. In the first-flight configuration, the payload fairing has a diameter of 4.2 meters, the overall length is 53 meters, liftoff weight is 625 tons, liftoff thrust is 753 tons. It can deliver 8 tons to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit and 12 tons to a 200-kilometer low-Earth orbit. It offers advantages such as high payload capacity, high inherent reliability, strong manufacturability, simple and convenient operation, strong expansion potential, and reusability.

As the main launch vehicle for China’s future large-scale constellation network deployment and low-cost cargo missions, the Lijian-2 meets the needs for launches such as constellation networking of low-orbit communication satellites, low-cost space station cargo transport, and medium-to-high-orbit satellites, as well as deep-space exploration. The reusable rocket series independently developed by China Great Wall Industry Corporation will innovate by adopting a clustered recovery approach, using an integrated bundling method to reduce the number of complex separation mechanisms and interfaces required by traditional rockets. This lowers overall structural complexity and opens up a new path to significantly reduce launch costs, aiming to provide global users with more abundant and efficient choices for launch services.

“A one-stop convenient launch system” provides strong support for the Lijian-2 launch vehicle to achieve high-density launches in the future. Relying on the comprehensive facilities built by China Great Wall Industry Corporation—China’s first solid and liquid rocket shared plant that also supports both satellite and rocket use—the rocket achieves an efficient mode of “launching right after coming off the production line.” This significantly shortens the overall rocket integration and launch-test cycles and can meet diverse launch requirements for different orbit and payload combinations.

According to reporters, the New Journey 02 satellite (the “White Elephant” space experiment spacecraft, abbreviated as the experimental spacecraft) is independently developed by the Institute of Microgravity Satellite Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has a 3-year in-orbit flight capability, the total spacecraft mass is 4.2 tons, and it adopts a single-bay integrated configuration design. The experimental spacecraft uses sealing sections, propulsion systems, laser IMU, and other components designed with new technologies and new processes. It carries out tasks including autonomous rendezvous design for spacecraft with large momentum, long-duration standoff capability design, distributed integrated spacecraft mission support design, integrated power distribution with expandable capacity energy system design, and mission planning for space science experiments. These designs can reduce R&D costs while ensuring system reliability.

Meanwhile, the New Journey 01 satellite is jointly led and developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Group Co., Ltd. As a “mini space laboratory,” it will conduct in-orbit testing and application demonstration verification of multiple in-orbit experiments based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) test devices. This satellite features an intelligent space cabin with side windows. Inside and outside the cabin are equipped with multi-angle remote sensing cameras. Inside the cabin are display and lighting devices, a mini cargo compartment, and movable item-grasping mechanisms, among others.

A Key Step Toward Commercialization of China’s Space Cargo Transportation System

Lijian-2 Chief Commander Yang Haoliang said that the first flight of the Lijian-2 launch vehicle immediately serving major national space engineering projects is an important signal in the construction of China’s next-generation space cargo transportation system. This shows that, in China’s planning for cargo transportation capability in space, it is no longer limited to a single vehicle type or a single route, but has begun to form a systematic pattern supported by multiple kinds of launch vehicles working together—mutually backed up and flexibly allocated. Such system-level capability is of foundational significance for ensuring the long-term stable operation of the space station and improving the safety and reliability of cargo transportation.

This mission is considered a key step for China’s space cargo transportation system to move toward commercialization. Yang Haoliang said that commercial rockets are not only meant to serve demands from the commercial market; in the future, they will be able to participate in major national space missions using engineering standards, driving launch services toward a more market-oriented, professional, and scalable direction. By introducing new participants to national missions through market-based mechanisms, it helps to continuously optimize costs and improve efficiency while ensuring safety and reliability, and to explore a new type of space cargo transportation model characterized by “national needs driving, commercial capabilities supporting.”

Advancing the R&D and Verification of Rocket Reuse Technology

In recent years, China Great Wall Industry Corporation has focused on market demand as the core and built a product matrix of the Lijian series launch vehicles. The Lijian-1 rocket has a payload capacity of 1.5 tons to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, focusing on batch launches of small satellites; the Lijian-2 rocket has a payload capacity of 8 tons to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, which will support the rapid deployment of China’s low-orbit internet constellation.

To achieve the low-cost goal, the Lijian series launch vehicles have both innovatively adopted a “design-at-the-source + batch production” dual-path cost-reduction approach. Drawing on the logic of automated vehicle production lines and modular development, the Lijian-2 launch vehicle can achieve a production capability of 20 launches per year.

Rocket recoverable technology is a key path to lowering launch costs. Yang Haoliang said that the core technical difficulties of this technology include the need to continuously tackle large airspace wide-speed-range aerodynamic thermal protection, real-time onboard guidance under nonlinear constraint conditions, deep throttle-control and deep thrust-vectoring for liquid propulsion, and multiple starts, among others.

China Great Wall Industry Corporation plans to first verify recovery technology through the Lihong series of flight vehicles, accumulating recovery data and reducing development risk, and then migrate the recovery technology to medium- and large-size launch vehicles. It will adopt a reusable scheme using universal core-stage bundling and clustered recovery to achieve the goal of recovering heavy-lift rockets at the level of payloads delivered to orbit. The company has already completed full verification of core technologies such as deceleration and recovery after reentry into the atmosphere through the first flight of the Lihong-1, and precise control of landing points for the rocket body. The company also plans to conduct recovery tests at the hundred-kilometer-class level for the Lihong-2 this year.

Lian Jie, deputy chief designer of the Lijian-2, introduced that the Lijian-2 launch vehicle will subsequently be reconfigured with the company’s self-developed Liqing-2 reusable engine. In the first-stage of the Lijian-2, two boosters will be added, forming the Lijian-2 heavy-lift rocket. The two rockets innovatively adopt a clustered recovery scheme using universal core-stage bundling. They feature technical advantages such as better aerodynamic controllability, lower landing impact, stronger power redundancy capability, and less loss in payload capacity.

Lian Jie said that for large-scale constellation deployment, mature modular combinations have the conditions to realize scalable production on a short cycle. They can quickly form thousand-ton-class liftoff thrust, which both fits the capabilities of the existing aerospace industry system and efficiently addresses shortcomings in heavy-lift launch capacity. The design where all bundled modules in the first stage are recovered means the recovered portion has a higher share in the entire rocket, while returning equipment is further simplified, making it more efficient to spread and reduce the total launch cost across the entire rocket.

(From: Shanghai Securities News)