China’s Suborbital Space Tourism Ambitions Heat Up as Two Companies Seek to Challenge Blue Origin & Virgin Galactic
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Two Chinese companies — CAS Space and Space Transportation — are pursuing the suborbital tourism market, with the former closely copying Blue Origin’s fully reusable New Shepard vehicle and the latter developing a winged vehicle that could be adapted for hypersonic point-to-point travel between distant locations on Earth.
CAS Space, a.k.a., Guangzhou Zhongke Aerospace Exploration Technology Co., Ltd., is developing a single-stage reusable rocket that lands under its own power topped with a capsule that descends under three parachutes.
CAS Space’s vehicle, designated ZK-6, will be powered by five Xuanyuan rocket engines whereas New Shepard has a single BE-3 engine. ZK-6 will have seven seats for passengers and four windows; New Shepard has room for six people who each have his own window to gaze out at the Earth and space.
CAS Space plans to conduct the vehicle’s initial uncrewed flight test in 2023, a delay from an earlier plan to fly this year. Commercial service will follow once the flight test program is completed.
Last month, the company announced a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the China Tourism Group Travel Service Company (CTS Travel) to work together on developing the space tourism market. CTS Travel is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Tourism Group that has nearly 3,000 branches nationwide and 60 branches in 28 countries and regions overseas.
CAS Space is a commercial spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which partially owns the company. ZK-6 is part of a family of rockets the company is to serve the suborbital and small- and medium-lift launch markets. On July 27, the company launched six spacecraft into orbit on the maiden flight of its ZK-1A (Lijian-1) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
On Wings and an Engine
Space Transportation, a.k.a., Beijing Lingkong Tianxing Technology, is progressing with its own program. The company said on its website that it conducted six test flights this year as part of its Tianxing program to develop suborbital and hypersonic vehicles. The launches were split evenly between Tianxing I and Tianxing II rockets.
Space Transportation’s goal is to develop a suborbital spaceplane capable of carrying tourists on suborbital flights. The winged system is very different from Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, which is currently in flight test.
A larger Space Transportation vehicle would be a high-speed transport that would fly between distant locations on Earth in less than two hours. The image below shows the evolution of the planned test vehicles.
The company released very little information about the six launches it conducted this year. It’s not even clear where the flights took place, although Wikipedia indicates they might have been conducted from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
Space Transportation has published the following development schedule:
2019-2022: technology verifications through flight tests;
2023: flight test of suborbital space tourism prototype;
2025: crewed flight of space tourism vehicle;
2028: flight test of global hypersonic vehicle prototype; and
2030: completion of full-scale global hypersonic vehicle.
Space Transportation has raised $60.6 million in three funding rounds. The company announced a Series A round in August 2021 that totaled $46.3 million. Matrix Partners China and Shanghai Guosheng Group led the round with new investors Wuyuefeng Capital, Xiamen Feiyu Yinghang and Shanghai Huygens.
Previous investors Source Code Capital, Volcanic Stone Capital, Keke Li Venture Capital, Yuanhe Yuandian, and Zhencheng Investment also contributed to the Series A round. The five investors were part of a $14.3 million seed round that was announced in December 2019.
Source Capital led an angel round that was announced in March 2019.
11 responses to “China’s Suborbital Space Tourism Ambitions Heat Up as Two Companies Seek to Challenge Blue Origin & Virgin Galactic”
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The Tianxing hypersonic vehicle flight profile portrays the ultimate hi-status playground: 2 hours to anywhere and an hour of it in microgravity.
The obscene spending habits of the uber-rich. It is not enough that Musk and Bezos get erotic massages on Gulfstreams and trade horses for favors. Disgusting.
That… graphic. They aren’t even trying anymore, are they?
Sinophobe much? If they look similar then they look similar. And I am not a “xibot” like you call anyone that throws the B.S. flag on you.
Gary, they literally took a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, slapped New Shepard capsule windows on and then put the pseudo-Dragon on top of a slightly modified New Shepard PM!
That is just the height of laziness!
Or maybe they ran of money in the marketing division and put something together in Kerbal Space Program with mods.
Lazy is not what they are and you are what you are. Brian, you know very well that my username is SLSFanboy and when NewSpace fanboys blow that nasty dogwhistle they (you) are self-identifying as the most toxic creeps on the internet.
And you are good with being a creep so being a sinophobe, racist, fascist, anti-vaxxer, climate change denier, and whatever else would be no surprise since most of NewSpace is contaminated with Ayn-Rand-in-Space libertarian whackjobs. Nothing that any of you do, no matter how disgusting, shocks me anymore.
And the dog-whistle calls up the first spacex garbage person. The Ball Peened Brain that has cyberstalked me for years. One of the worst creeps in the Musk legion of doom.
Gary: Ohe Noes! Side-mounted hypergolic abort engines make the Dragon a deathtrap! Capsules must have solid motor tractor escape systems.
Also Gary: This Chinese capsule design with side-mounted hypergolic abort engines is innovative and anyone who criticizes it is racist!
What is interesting is that they are not making any attempt to duplicate the SLS and Orion… Like I said they only take the best ideas, just like the Russians did with our bombers.?
One is particularly struck by the fact that the straight steal of Crew Dragon imagery even includes the diagonal seam where the Dragon nose cap can flip up to expose its docking collar. What the heck is that supposed to be doing on a suborbital thrill ride? One would have to have a heart of stone not to be consumed by laughter.
Yes, only stealing the very best of Western Ideas. And they really want to rule the world?
When the NewSpace fanboys spew their garbage about China “stealing the best western ideas” it is so transparent. Their coded language is not fooling anyone.
Racist, autocratic, neoliberal, Ayn-Rand-in-Space libertarian whackjobs. The worst.