She successfully launched meteorological satellites into orbit, and in the future will help build the Chinese Starlink
Today, January 11, the first launch of the Gravity-1 rocket, which was produced by the Chinese private company Orienspace, took place. The 30-meter rocket launched at 03:30 Beijing time (08:30 Moscow time) from a water platform located in the Yellow Sea near the city of Haiyan in the eastern province of Shandong. The rocket successfully launched three Earth remote sensing satellites into low-Earth orbit at an altitude of approximately 500 km.
The Gravity-1 launch vehicle consists of three main stages and four boosters, all powered by solid rocket motors and equipped with flexible rotating nozzles. The launch weight of the rocket is 405 tons, and the launch thrust — 600 tons, it is capable of launching spacecraft with a total weight of up to 6.5 tons into low Earth orbit. Such characteristics, as China claims, make Gravity-1 the most powerful solid-propellant launch vehicle in the world.
The satellites that Gravity-1 sent into orbit are designed for meteorological analysis and forecasting, spatial environmental research and disaster prevention. According to Orienspace, this rocket is perfect for deploying large satellite constellations, in particular, for implementing a global satellite Internet project (the Chinese analogue of Starlink). In the future, the Gravity rocket family is planned to be expanded.