China News Service, Beijing, October 14th (Reporter Ma Shuaisha) According to the Chinese private rocket company Blue Arrow Aerospace, at 19:40 on October 14th, Beijing time, the Zhuque-2 improved Yaosi-4 carrier rocket was launched from the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone. It will carry a total of 10 satellites, including the National Star Aerospace Era-39, 44~50 satellites, and the Optical Transmission-03 and 04 satellites, into the predetermined orbit. The flight test mission was a complete success.
Nationstar Aerospace’s Age-39 and 44~50 satellites are independently developed by the commercial aerospace company Nationstar Aerospace. The satellite is equipped with high-performance computing payloads, high-speed inter-satellite/satellite-ground laser communication payloads, and low-light cameras. It will conduct on-orbit verification of key technologies such as 10,000-watt liquid-cooled fluid circuits, ultra-large deployable radiant cooling wings, full-area laser communication networks, and basic large-scale model on-orbit training. These eight satellites are the networking satellites of the "Star Computing" project. The "Star Computing" plan consists of 2,800 computing satellites, of which 2,400 are inference computing satellites and 400 are training computing satellites. The network forms a training and inference network covering the world's land, sea, air and space.
Optical transmission-03 and 04 satellites are new generation laser data transmission test satellites developed by the private aerospace company Blue Tower Intelligence for key satellite networking technologies.
On October 14, the Zhuque-2 improved Yaosi-4 carrier rocket was successfully launched at the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone. (Photo courtesy of Blue Arrow Aerospace)
The improved Zhuque-2 launch vehicle is a two-stage cryogenic liquid rocket that uses liquid oxygen methane propellant and has a transport capacity of 6 tons in low-Earth orbit and 4 tons in a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit. This mission is the 10th flight of the Suzaku-2 series of launch vehicles. At present, the Zhuque-2 series launch vehicles have performed tasks such as "carpooling" of small and medium-sized satellites, satellite Internet constellation networking, and deployment of medium and large satellites, and have accumulated diversified experience.
In the future, with the development of satellite Internet, space computing power and other fields, the demand for commercial launches will become more abundant, requiring both batch networking of large constellations and flexible and economical launches of small and medium-sized satellites. "Carpooling" launches will become the norm. Blue Arrow Aerospace stated that it will continue to improve the multi-customer "carpooling" model in the future, so that the improved Zhuque-2 launch vehicle and the Zhuque-3 launch vehicle will form a laddered capacity system. The former is aimed at fast, flexible, and batch small and medium-sized missions, while the latter has a low-orbit transport capacity of more than 20 tons and is geared towards ultra-large-scale constellations, large space station replenishment and deep space exploration missions.
