Andrew Jones

LC-301 at Wenchang spaceport, built for the Long March 10 and China's crewed lunar landing missions.
m.weibo.cn/detail/52676...

Orienspace's Peng Haomin says the company is preparing for its next Gravity-1 solid rocket launch after Spring Festival and is also preparing for an IPO. Company will choose the right time to make the application. Source: m.chinanews.com/wap/detail/z...

Test stage recovered.

China's iSpace has announced a staggering $729 million (5 billion yuan) in D++ series funding. This appears to be the largest round so far for a Chinese launch company, despite a far from stellar launch record & no liquid rocket launch attempt to date. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_Wz1_mQPKP...

A Jielong-3 lifted off at 0637 UTC today (Feb. 12) off the coast of Yangjiang City, Guangdong province, successfully sending the PRSC-EO2 satellite into orbit for Pakistan. This was China's 10th orbital launch attempt of 2026. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TgY8u07_gD...

Actual link: mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TgY8u07_gD...

Chinese launch startup Space Epoch has secured series B funding, aims for debut fight of reusable YXZ-1 (Hiker-1) rocket later this year.
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TgY8u07_gD...

That's the recovery vessel. It will use a wire system to catch the stage, which is required with grid fins and hooks.

The recovered Mengzhou.

Close-up of liftoff.

Stable descent and splashdown footage.

China performed a successful in-flight abort test of the Mengzhou crew spacecraft and a reentry, powered descent and splashdown of a first stage CZ-10A today. Big step for its lunar and human spaceflight programs

Mengzhou atop of the CZ-10A test stage. Grid fins and recovery hooks visible at the top of the stage, with people offering perspective of scale. Low-altitude test flight and abort test at maxQ scheduled for Feb. 11. m.weibo.cn/detail/52632...

These zones indicate this spaceplane (now all but confirmed thanks to a non-labelled satellite image from the company now known as Vantor, ex-Maxar) is making a 4th flight on yet another should-be-weird-looking Long March 2F. And again we are unlikely to get public info of it.

Quite a moment. Artemis 2, Long March 10A with Mengzhou, and Starship V3 all undergoing preparations, all with big implications for lunar ambitions.

Mengzhou now atop the CZ-10A low-altitude test stage.

We haven't heard from the Chinese reusable space plane for a good while (last mission ended in September 2024). Probably time soon for it to stretch its wings again.

Mengzhou in-flight abort test at maxQ coming in February, it seems

The second stage of the first Zhuque-3 rocket launched in December reentered at 1239 UTC today (±1 min) over the Southern Ocean, according to a US Space Force TIP message. There was a surprising level of interest in the event in Europe, due to ground tracks & reentry estimates.

China's human spaceflight agency has opened voting for mission logos for 2026 missions. Here are the 10 candidates for the Mengzhou mission, variously showing Mengzhou, the CZ-10A and Tiangong. www.cmse.gov.cn:8081/pub/trspoll/...

CASC has conducted a 200-second test of a 240-ton kerolox engine, designed for commercial users and developed for large and medium-sized reusable launch vehicles.

Space traffic management:
- conduct research on key technologies such as space debris monitoring, early warning, and removal
- take initiative in formulation of international rules for space traffic management
CCTV report: content-static.cctvnews.cctv.com/snow-book/in...

Space tourism:
Space tourism:
- accelerate development of suborbital and orbital space tourism vehicle products
- complete relevant crewed/uncrewed flight verifications
- flight-based operation of suborbital space tourism, and gradually develop orbital space tourism.

Resources: as well as Tiangong kaiwu studies, CASC aims to build experimental and ground support system for space resource development focus on breakthroughs for key tech for resource exploration, intelligent autonomous mining, transfer & transportation, & on-orbit processing

An early insight into China's plans for space in its 15th Five-year plan, & it's certainly ambitious & long-term. Areas include:
- Space resource development (Inc. feasibility studies for "Tiangong Kaiwu" major resource project)
- Space tourism
- Space-based digital infrastructure
- STM

Water deluge system test for a lunar crewed landing mission pad at Wenchang spaceport. Via Douyin/dyums21210av.

Patch sent up on the emergency Shenzhou-22 launch. Two astronauts embarked on an EVA to image the crack, suspected to be caused by debris, and applied the patch. Then SZ-20 was deorbited.