With the affordable and highly adjustable Smart Dragon 3 rocket, which can carry 3,300 pounds into a 500-kilometer orbit, China is increasing its possibilities for launching tiny satellites.
China Can Launch Smaller Satellites Using Its Affordable Smart Dragon 3 Rocket
With a new rocket named the Smart Dragon 3, which is anticipated to make its debut flight shortly, China is continuing to expand its choices for launching tiny satellites.
According to its creator, China Rocket Co. Ltd., Smart Dragon 3, also known as Jielong 3, completed payload fairing separation tests last week and has reached the flight test phase for its maiden mission.
In a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous orbit, Smart Dragon 3 can place 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) of payload. According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the rocket will also be inexpensive and very flexible, and it can launch up to 20 satellites simultaneously.
Satellites for commercial clients will be launched using the four-stage solid-propellant Smart Dragon 3 by China Rocket Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT).
Strangely, the rocket resembles the newly introduced Lijian 1 rocket from CAS Space, which made its inaugural flight on July 27 and successfully launched six satellites into orbit. These two solid rockets are China's most potent solid rockets for orbital launches to date.
One of the two primary launch vehicle manufacturers within the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the primary space contractor for the nation, is CALT, the parent firm of China Rocket.
Several private Chinese companies, like Galactic Energy and iSpace, use solid rockets to launch commercial satellites. In contrast, Expace, a subsidiary of another significant Chinese military contractor, CASIC, uses the Kuaizhou solid rocket series.
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CAS Space Launched Lijian-1 Rocket Orbiting Six Minisatellites.
Last month, Chinese launch services company CAS Space successfully launched the first Lijian-1 solid rocket, putting six miniature satellites into orbit.
At 12:12 am Eastern time, the four-stage Lijian-1 (ZK-1A) rocket was launched from an erector launcher at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Within an hour of liftoff, China's official space newspaper announced the launch's success.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences says that the rocket weighed 135 tons when it took off, was 30 meters long, and had a core stage diameter of 2.65 meters and a fairing diameter of 2.65 meters. It could move 1,500 kilograms of cargo into a sun-synchronous orbit 500 kilometers above the Earth.
Additionally, state media in China said that the six satellites, some of which were made by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, were used for electromagnetic tests, measurements of the density of the atmosphere, experiments with quantum keys, and research into space technology.
The state-owned Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), which created the Nanyue Science Satellite, will utilize it to promote science. Additionally, it has a GNSS-R payload that uses reflected GPS and Beidou satellite signals to monitor the wetness of the soil. It also has an ion propulsion system created by the 803rd research institute of SAST.
To improve the nation's overall space capabilities, state-owned and private space companies in China have recently been working on various solid rockets with different capacities.
