The two-stage rocket was launched at 09:00 Beijing time from Jiuquan Cosmodrome in the Gobi Desert in northwest China. The carrier brought the test cargo into sun-synchronous orbit. This is the world’s first achievement of this level for methane and liquid oxygen rockets.

Initialization details

• “Zhuque-2” is a two-stage liquid propellant rocket.
• The rocket has a height of 49.5 meters and a diameter of 3.35 meters.
• It has the capacity to launch 6 tons into low Earth orbit and 4 tons into sun-synchronous orbit.
• The first stage of the rocket uses a powerful Tianque-12 (TQ-12) engine on liquid methane that provides 268 tons of thrust.
• The second stage uses a combination of Tianque-12 and Tianque-11 motors used to adjust direction and speed.
• The development of the TQ-12 engine began in July 2019 and took four years.

There have been several unsuccessful attempts to launch methane rockets this year. Relativity Space failed to launch the Terran 1 rocket, and SpaceX had a setback with the Starship launch. LandSpace, which made this new launch, also attempted to launch on December 14 last year, but that attempt also failed, possibly due to a failure in the second stage’s auxiliary thruster.

The world space industry is trying to use methane technologies, as they have high performance and low cost. It is also ideal for multiple uses due to its low toxicity.