Galactic Energy has promised to launch China’s first reusable rocket into orbit in November 2024. Numerous private organizations in the country are fighting for the right to be the first in the production of reusable launch vehicles. Many of them are planned to launch in 2025, so Galactic Energy could be the first company to achieve a historic launch.

The readiness of the partially reusable Pallas-1 rocket (“Pallada-1”) for launch in November was announced by the head of the Galactic Energy company after a visit to the production facility at the end of January 2024. “Pallad-1” will be ready for flight in November this year, said Mr. Liu Baiqi. “People will be able to watch the launch from the coast of the South China Sea and enjoy the beauty of wisdom and technology.”

Liu Baiqi also refused to answer the question about whether the rocket’s first stage would be returned. He emphasized that this was confidential information and could not be discussed yet.

The Galactic Energy initiative was founded in 2018 and has established itself as one of the leaders in private space exploration in China. The company’s first rocket (a small four-stage 20th Ceres-1 (“Ceres-1”) with a solid fuel engine) achieved 9 successful launches. There was an accident on the tenth launch, but this does not negate Galactic Energy’s achievements.

The Pallada-1 rocket is being developed as partially reusable. This is a 49-meter mid-range launch vehicle capable of launching up to 5 tonnes of cargo into low orbit and up to 3 tonnes into sun-synchronous orbit. In the first stage, 7 engines, each with an adjustable thrust of 50 tons, are installed and run on a mixture of kerosene and oxygen. The company independently developed Cangqiong (Welkin) engines.

South China Morning Post sources claim that although the Pallada-1 rocket is quite capable of reaching orbit, the company is unlikely to return the first stage to the launch pad in November. According to those in the know, Pallas-1 has not undergone extensive testing. Only a small prototype was tested, which was checked for the operation of the on-board software, but by no means from the soft landing position of a large-scale product.

Besides Galactic Energy, reusable rockets are being developed by Chinese companies LandSpace Technology, iSpace, ExPace and the daughter of the Chinese State Space Corporation CAS Space. All of them, one way or another, can boast that so far only prototypes have jumped to a small height. Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX leads the world in the field of reusable rockets. China needs reusable launch vehicles for the same reason Musk has been creating them for years — the deployment of thousands of communications satellite groups into orbit.