CAS Space's Kinetica-1 puts nine satellites in orbit on its 16th flight; company says it can now build 30 rockets a year with a launch campaign under 10 days
At 12:03 on 20 September, CAS Space launched the Kinetica-1 Y18 from the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone, placing nine satellites including Qinling-01/02, Pujiang-4 and Pengcheng Nanke-1 into their planned orbits. It was the 16th flight of the Kinetica-1 and the 17th launch of the Kinetica family, which has now put one spacecraft and 121 satellites into orbit. CAS Space says its annual production capacity has reached 30 rockets and its launch campaign has been cut to under 10 days.
According to CAS Space, at 12:03 Beijing time on 20 September the Kinetica-1 Y18 lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone and placed nine satellites into their planned orbits in a single launch: Qinling-01 and -02, Pujiang-4, Pengcheng Nanke-1, Diting-01 Group A/B/C, Chaozhisuan-1 and Yunxiao Tanluzhe. China News Service, Science and Technology Daily, IT Home and other outlets all reported the same figures, citing CAS Space.
This was the 16th flight of the Kinetica-1 and the 17th launch of the Kinetica family, which has now put one spacecraft and 121 satellites into space, with a total payload mass of more than 21 tonnes. The Kinetica-1 is a four-stage solid rocket developed by CAS Space under the overall leadership of the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It first flew on 27 July 2022 and is China's largest solid rocket in service: 30 metres long, 2.65 metres in core diameter, with a liftoff mass of 135 tonnes, liftoff thrust of 200 tonnes and 1.5 tonnes of capacity to a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit.
The production and turnaround figures are the company's own claims: Meng Xiangfu, deputy chief commander for the Kinetica-1 at CAS Space, said the rocket's annual production capacity has reached 30, and that with a dedicated launch pad and supporting facilities the launch-site campaign can be cut to under 10 days; the launch manifest is planned into the second half of 2027. The company also describes a two-track approach of "routine launches on land and mobile launches at sea".
Each of the nine satellites has its own job: Qinling-01 and -02 support ecological protection in the Qinling Mountains and Yellow River basin; Pujiang-4 is China's first satellite for combined high-precision point-source detection of carbon dioxide and methane; Chaozhisuan-1 is a high-resolution remote-sensing satellite commissioned by Chaozhisuan (Beijing) Technology, carrying a 4-metre visible-light camera and an AI computer, and according to Science and Technology Daily it is China's first integrated "first rocket, first satellite" project with exclusive naming rights on the rocket; Diting-01 Group A/B/C is China's first constellation to use a three-satellite formation for commercial space-based RF data collection, for electromagnetic spectrum awareness; Pengcheng Nanke-1, built by GalaxySpace with Peng Cheng Laboratory and the Southern University of Science and Technology, is China's first in-orbit test of combined communications, remote sensing and computing.
Our take: the launch itself is not technically remarkable; several Chinese companies have already flown multiple satellites on solid rockets. What matters is the cadence. The Kinetica-1 first flew in 2022 and has reached its 16th flight in four years, and CAS Space now says it can build 30 a year with a launch campaign under 10 days. This is the first time a Chinese commercial solid-rocket maker has publicly committed to near-"airline-style" production rates. Whether to believe it will be clear from the actual launch rate over the next year, and the company has left itself no room: it speaks of "jointly building an airline-style launch capability".