The Chinese company OneSpace launched the first private rocket in the PRC

A space startup from Beijing called OneSpace launched the first private rocket in China. Start was made this week. This is a small suborbital rocket, whose height is about 9 meters.

The goal of the project itself is to confirm the possibility of launching a rocket of its own design and obtain a certain amount of information about the flight itself. The company itself was founded in 2015. In just three years, the startup has moved from concept to space flight. OneSpace is often compared to SpaceX due to some overlapping factors.

“OneSpace is now in a situation that is very similar to the initial stage of development of SpaceX. This company was the first in the United States. We are the first in China, ”a company representative said before the launch of the rocket.
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The founder of OneSpace claims that the rocket was built on its own, the company used its technology. Not everyone agrees. Professor Xin Chen from the University of Hong Kong doubts that the OneSpace rocket is entirely developed by this company. He says that it’s simply impossible to develop a rocket from scratch in a year: “This is ultra-high speed, because some companies took more than 10 years to accomplish the same task.” It may well be that OneSpace receives help from someone, but now it’s clear what kind of help - intellectual, engineering, financial, or all of this together.

Of course, this company is still far from SpaceX. Why? If only because she launched her rocket to a height of 100 km from the surface of the Earth, and not several thousand, as is the case with SpaceX. Ilon Musk nevertheless achieved that his rockets not only “carry” the payload into orbit, but also partially return back - however, so far this only concerns the first stage. In the future, Musk is going to return to Earth more details of launch vehicles, which will radically reduce the cost of launching cargo into space.

Not so long ago, Ilon Mask said that he hoped for a further reduction in the cost of launching the launch vehicle, and this reduction would be radical - up to $ 5-6 million. 5 The released results can be used to develop other areas.

The company does not only cost on its own - more than $ 70 million was raised relatively recently. Investments, according to the company manager, OneSpace was able to get relatively easy. There are quite a lot of companies and individuals in China that support astronautics, and this is very active.



As a matter of fact, the OneSpace task is to launch small satellites of different companies, mainly telecommunications. The Chinese are counting on the imminent entry into the market of commercial space transportation.

According to the developers of the rocket, it will be able to send space a payload at a not very high price. In China, by the way, there are a lot of telecommunication companies, and many of them need satellites in space. The current price does not allow businesses to approach the space sector, but if the launch costs had decreased, Chinese companies would actively use such a service.

Interestingly, the OneSpace management does not agree when comparing a company with SpaceX: “Many people compare us with SpaceX, but to be honest, the difference is slightly more than huge.”

OneSpace is now conducting final tests that will pave the way for real space flights with payload output. By the way, in China there are other companies that develop their own missiles with the same purpose as OneSpace. Among others, you can call LandSpace and LinkSpace. There are a lot of companies because there is a demand from the telecommunications market for sending equipment to space. At the moment, not so many companies can offer their services, and they are very expensive. The same SpaceX offers space ship freight for about $ 80-90 million.

In addition, the idea of ​​space tourism is becoming popular, now several large companies are working in this direction, including Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Blue Origin and many other smaller ones.