The Zhuque-2, is a Chinese medium-class orbital launch vehicle developed by LandSpace. It is a liquid-fuelled rocket powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane (methalox), and is the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit in the Methalox race to orbit, competing with Relativity Space's Terran 1 and SpaceX's Starship.

Design

Zhuque-2 has a liftoff weight of 216 metric tons and uses 4 TQ-12 methalox engines in the first stage each with a thrust of 67 metric tonnes. The second stage utilizes one vacuum optimized TQ-12 with a thrust of 80 metric tonnes in combination with an 8 metric tonnes thrust TQ-11 engine which acts as a vernier thruster.

Zhuque-2 is capable of lifting 6,000 kg of payload into a 200 km low Earth orbit and 4,000 kg of payload into a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit.

History

In May 2019, LandSpace performed test firings of its liquid methane and liquid oxygen fuelled TQ-12 rocket engine at its test facility at Huzhou, Zhejiang province. LandSpace's head of research and development, Ge Minghe, says the engine has a thrust of 80 tonnes. The Huzhou facility will be able to produce about 15 ZQ-2 rockets and 200 TQ-12 engines starting in 2022, according to CEO, Zhang Changwu.

On 14 December 2022, LandSpace conducted the debut flight of Zhuque-2, but failed to reach orbit due to an early shutdown of its second stage vernier engines after the second stage main engines apparently completed a successful burn. It was the world's first orbital launch attempt by a methane-fueled launch vehicle.

In March 2023, LandSpace confirmed that the second Zhuque-2 launch vehicle had completed assembly and was undergoing preparations for a launch attempt in the coming months.

On 12 July 2023, Zhuque-2 became the first methane-fueled launch vehicle to reach orbit after a successful second flight.

Credit: Wikipiedia

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center is a Chinese space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) located in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia. It is part of the Dongfeng Aerospace City (Base 10). Although the facility is geographically located within Ejin Banner of Inner Mongolia's Alxa League, it is named after the nearest city, Jiuquan in Gansu Province. The launch center straddles both sides of the Ruo Shui river.

It was founded in 1958, the first of China's four spaceports. As with all Chinese launch facilities, it is remote and generally closed to foreigners.

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center is usually used to launch vehicles into lower and medium orbits with large orbital inclination angles, as well as testing medium to long-range missiles. Its facilities are state of the art and provide support to every phase of a satellite launch campaign. The site includes the Technical Center, the Launch Complex, the Launch Control Center, the Mission Command and Control Center and various other logistical support systems.

The center covers 2800 km (1739.8 miles) and may have housing for as many as 20,000 people. The facilities and launch support equipment were likely modelled on Soviet counterparts and the Soviet Union likely provided technical support to Jiuquan.

The launch center has been the focus of many of China's ventures into space, including their first satellite Dong Fang Hong I in 1970, and their first crewed space mission, Shenzhou 5 on 15 October 2003. As of 2021, all Chinese crewed space flights, meaning all flights in the Shenzhou program including crewed flights to the Tiangong space station, have launched from Jiuquan.

In August 2016, China launched the first quantum communication satellite, the "Quantum Experiments at Space Scale", from the center.

In August 2018, Chinese private rocket manufacturing startups i-Space and OneSpace launched sub-orbital rockets from the center. On July 25, 2019, the first Chinese private orbital launch took place from Jiuquan as I-Space launched their Hyperbola-1 rocket.