Galactic Energy () is a Chinese private space launch enterprise flying the Ceres-1 and developing the Pallas-1 and 2 orbital rockets. The company's long-term objective is to mine asteroids for rare metals and minerals.

History

Galactic Energy successfully conducted its first launch in November 2020 with a Ceres-1 rocket. Galactic Energy became the second private company in China to put a satellite in orbit successfully (after i-Space) and the fourth to attempt an orbital launch (after Landspace, OneSpace, and i-Space). On 6 December 2021, Galactic Energy launched its second Ceres-1 rocket, becoming the first Chinese private firm to reach orbit twice. In January 2022, the company raised $200 million for reusable launch vehicle development.

Ceres-1

Ceres-1 is a four-stage rocket, the first three stages use solid-propellant rocket motors and the final stage uses a

hydrazine Hydrazine is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a simple pnictogen hydride, and is a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like odour. Hydrazine is highly toxic unless handled in solution as, for example, hydrazine ...

propulsion system. It is about tall and in diameter. It can deliver to low Earth orbit or to 500 km

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

. The first launch of Ceres-1 took place at 7 November 2020, successfully placing the Tianqi 11 (also transcribed Tiange, also known as TQ 11, and Scorpio 1, COSPAR 2020-080A) satellite in orbit. The satellite's mass was about and its purpose was to function as an experimental satellite offering

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

(IoT) communications.

Pallas-1 and 2

The Pallas-1 is a medium-lift orbital launch vehicle under development by the company. The first stage will have legs and grid fins to allow recovery by vertical landing (much like the SpaceX Falcon 9). The first launch is scheduled to take place in 2024. Pallas-1 is planned to be capable of placing a 5-tonne payload into low Earth orbit (LEO), or a 3-tonne payload into a 700-kilometer

sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

(SSO). An upgraded variant of the rocket, Pallas-2 ( zh, link=no, s=智神星二号), is currently under development. Using three Pallas-1 booster cores as its first stage, Pallas-2 will be capable of putting a 14-tonne payload into low Earth orbit.

Marketplace

Galactic Space is in competition with several other Chinese space rocket startups, being LandSpace, LinkSpace, ExPace, i-Space, OneSpace and Deep Blue Aerospace.

Launches

References

External links

* Aerospace companies of China Space launch vehicles of China Private spaceflight companies Commercial spaceflight Commercial launch service providers {{PRChina-company-stub