Huge commercial Chinese solid rocket launches 3 satellites from barge in the Yellow Sea

HELSINKI — Chinese launch startup Orienspace successfully conducted its second launch late Friday, with a Gravity-1 solid rocket lifting off from a barge in the Yellow Sea.

The second Gravity-1 rocket lifted off at 10:20 p.m. Eastern, Oct. 10 (0220 UTC Oct. 11) from a barge off the coast of Haiyang, Shandong Province, supported by the Haiyang Oriental Spaceport. The rocket climbed into cloudy skies, with exhaust and debris billowing off the specially converted barge.

The launch carried three satellites into near-polar orbits: the Jilin-1 Wideband 02B07 Earth observation satellite for Changguang Satellite Technology (CGST), and the Shutian Yuxing-01 and Shutian Yuxing-02 satellites developed by Geespace, the space arm of automaker Geely. 

The Jilin-1 satellite is described as a high-resolution, ultra-wide optical remote-sensing satellite, capable of providing imagery with 0.5-meter resolution and a 150-km swath width. The satellite has already delivered high resolution imagery of a high latitude area of Russia. The two Shutian Yuxing satellites are based on Geespace’s GSP50 50-kilogram-class general purpose platform.

The launch is only the second orbital mission for Orienspace, founded in 2020, following the January 2024 debut flight of the Gravity-1. The company says the rocket underwent multiple internal upgrades along with improved quality stability, production consistency and reliability. Orienspace also provided an official company livestream of the mission, which is uncommon for Chinese launches.

The bulky Gravity-1 rocket consists of three stages and four boosters. It has the capability to loft around 6,500 kg of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), or 3,700 kg to 700-km sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), when using a kerosene-liquid oxygen third stage.

Geespace last month completed the 64-satellite first phase of an Internet of Things constellation with the launch of a Jielong-3 rocket, also from the Haiyang Oriental Spaceport.

Orienspace says the successful second launch further validated its reliability and capacity for sea-based, multi-satellite constellation deployments. The company is one of a plethora of commercial launch startups aiming to secure contracts to launch satellites for China’s megaconstellation projects, namely Guowang and Qianfan, or Thousand Sails.

The company raised between $27 million and $124 million in B-round funding in August to further support its ambitions, namely the liquid propellant Gravity-2 launcher, which could have its test flight before the end of the year. There has since been a boom in funding Chinese commercial launch companies, including record rounds for Galactic Energy and Space Pioneer.

The reusable Gravity-2 is a 70 meters tall, two-stage reusable kerosene-liquid oxygen propellant rocket with a core diameter of 4.2 meters and a 5.2-meter-wide payload fairing. The company performed a first stage static fire test in July.

According to earlier statements, the Gravity-2 (if powered by nine Yuanli-85 engines as originally planned) can carry 21,500 kg to LEO or 15,000 kg to 500-km SSO. A variant with solid side boosters would be capable of sending 29,000 kg to LEO or around 20,000 kg to SSO. Gravity-2 is just one of a number of new commercial rockets targeting debut flights before the end of the year.

Friday’s launch was China’s 60th orbital launch attempt of 2025, which includes a single failure. The next activity is expected to be a Long March 8A and Long March 12 launches from the commercial spaceport on Hainan island. China is expected to close out the year with further hardware tests related to its crewed lunar program and debut flights of new and potentially reusable launch vehicles from both state-owned and commercial launch service providers.