Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site Announces Readiness for Launches; Long March 12 to Debut
TapTechNews July 16th news, the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site officially announced that it has the ability to execute launches. The launch site can now undertake rocket launch business and achieve commercial operation. In the second half of this year, the launch site will迎来 its first rocket launch.
@Cao Meng - Aerospace said that the Long March 12 rocket has now arrived at the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site and started joint training, and it is planned to start the first flight test in August this year.
The Long March 12 launch vehicle is the first 3.8-meter diameter single-core stage liquid launch vehicle in China developed by the Eighth Institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. It has a two-stage configuration. The first stage uses four liquid oxygen/kerosene engines with a thrust of 1250 kilonewtons, and the second stage uses two liquid oxygen/kerosene engines with a thrust of 180 kilonewtons.
The diameter of the Long March 12 is 3.8 meters, and the fairing is equipped with diameters of 5.2 meters and 4.2 meters. Its near-Earth orbit payload capacity is 10 tons, and its 700-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit payload capacity is 6 tons. It mainly focuses on commercial tasks such as low-orbit constellation networking and can be multi-sized adapted according to different tasks.
It is worth noting that this first launch vehicle belongs to a disposable use version, but there is a reusable model planned in the 3.8-meter diameter family of the Eighth Institute.
Zeng Wenhua, the chief designer of the overall Long March 12 launch vehicle, introduced that, “The biggest feature of the Long March 12 launch vehicle is that it pioneered a 3.8-meter arrow body diameter in the Long March family. This is based on the improved research and development situation of China's new-generation main liquid oxygen/kerosene engine YF-100 series, and under the constraint of the maximum envelope boundary of China's railway transportation capacity. Through repeated demonstration and research, as well as a large number of transportation tests with the railway department, it can not only be transported by railway to various launch sites in China, but also can achieve the best adaptation between the arrow body diameter and the number of engines, realize capacity expansion and one-arrow for general use, and lay the foundation for future reusable rockets.”
Experts from the Eighth Institute of Aerospace said that the Long March 12 launch vehicle inherits the efficient single-core stage tandem configuration of the active-duty Long March series rockets, which is simple, reliable, and has good task versatility, improves the sun-synchronous orbit insertion capability and low-orbit multi-constellation networking capability, further improves and broadens the spectrum of China's new-generatio n launch vehicles, and helps the high-quality development of China's aerospace transportation system, raising the liquid rocket launch capacity of a single core stage and the envelope of large fairings to a new level.