Commercial space center to take off

Monday was the second China Space Day. On April 24, 1970, China launched its first satellite, Dongfanghong 1.

Also Monday, Expace Technology said it signed a contract with an unnamed domestic client to conduct four commercial launch missions in a week early in 2018.

The missions will employ Kuaizhou 1A, a solid-fuel carrier rocket developed by the CASIC Fourth Academy in Wuhan. The rocket has a liftoff weight of 30 metric tons and is capable of sending a 200 kg payload into a sun-synchronous orbit, or a 300 kg payload into a low-Earth orbit. Unlike most Chinese carrier rockets, it uses a transporter-erectorlauncher vehicle rather than a fixed launch pad.

The first flight of Kuaizhou 1A, to launch three small satellites, was in January at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.

CASIC Fourth Academy began to develop Kuaizhou solid-fuel rockets in 2009 as a low-cost, quick-response rocket family for the commercial launch market. It has launched three of the rockets.

Zhang Di, deputy director of the academy and chairman of Expace, said a new-generation Kuaizhou 11 is under development and will make its first flight before year’s end.

He said Kuaizhou 11 will have a liftoff weight of 78 tons and will be capable of placing a 1-ton payload into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 km, or a 1.5-ton payload into a low Earth orbit at an altitude of 400 km.