China’s OneSpace Launches Suborbital Booster
Truly god view, Jilin-1 video satellite shot @OneSpace01 OS-X1 suborbital rocket’s launch at JSLC this noon. pic.twitter.com/KposRHZc4D
— dafeng cao (@dafengcao) September 7, 2018
OneSpace launched the OS-X1 suborbital rocket on Friday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in another step toward orbital flights for the Chinese commercial launch company, according to media reports.
Gbtimes reports the solid-fuel Chongqing Liangjiang Star booster reached an altitude of about 35 kilometer during a 3m 20s flight. The first flight of the suborbital rocket was conducted in May.
The flight was captured from space by the Jilin-1, which was passing overhead at the time.
The ground view. pic.twitter.com/OfqEn6RZtF
— dafeng cao (@dafengcao) September 7, 2018
The suborbital flights are testing technology for the company’s larger OS-XM orbital booster. The company is planning a flight test of that rocket by the end of the year.
The flight came two days after Chinese rival iSpace launched its Hyperbola-1Z suborbital rocket from Jiuquan. iSpace also has plans for an orbital launch vehicle and a space plane.
A third commercial launch firm, Landspace, plans to launch the orbital Zhuque-1 rocket next month.
7 responses to “China’s OneSpace Launches Suborbital Booster”
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That trajectory looks more like a surface to air missile than a sounding rocket. Was it guided, or only stabilized?
Hey, SAM’s are sub-orbital too.
I thought the same thing. That pitch manuever is anomolaous for a sounding/suborbital rocket. You want those guys to go straight up.
They cut off the view from space early. Wonder if it landed in a location they didn’t want to show.
I’m not so sure that was from a satellite, there was no apparent motion of the scene due to the mismatch between the Earth’s surface and the camera’s ‘orbital’ frame. Rather it looks to me as if it was taken by a drone at altitude but in the same reference frame as the rocket.
In the article it stated it was filmed from space by the Jilin-1 satellite which is in a 540 km orbit.
Thanks, I was expecting a faster rate between the reference frames of the Earth’s surface and the camera. In this video the net difference shows up as an apparent motion from bottom to top of the frame. I wonder if the image might be a bit synthetic where the video frames are regenerated subtracting some of this out. Later in the video you get more of the effect of the satellite approaching a direct overflight of the flight path of the rocket. So this launch was timed to allow for prime observing conditions for the satellite.