Every Cosmic Herald story on CASC — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
Commercial trackers say China's Shijian-31 has rotated the Soviet-era Molniya orbit onto the equator and detuned its period to 12.5 hours, letting one satellite sweep the entire geostationary belt from 2,000 km above it every 23 days.
Read the story →On its maiden flight, China's Long March 10B had its spent first stage snagged mid-fall by a net rig on the recovery ship Linghang Zhe, making China the second nation to recover an orbital booster intact — via a method nobody else has pulled off.
Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship, New Glenn, Vulcan Centaur, Neutron, Ariane 6, and six more launch vehicles compared on payload, cost per launch, and reusability, including China's Long March 10B, which on July 10 became just the third rocket in history to catch its own booster.
Gate Space, a Vienna-born satellite propulsion firm, secured €6.3M from the European Innovation Council — the only space company in a 38-firm cohort — as Europe doubles down on homegrown launch and in-orbit capabilities.
Two-year-old Hefei startup Spark Space has test-fired its Lieyan-2 kerosene-LOX engine and closed back-to-back funding rounds totaling over $14.8M, racing to debut its Jinhua-1 rocket by 2027.
The maiden flight of the Long March 12B on June 1 marks another step in China's drive toward reusable launchers — and another entrant in an increasingly crowded global market for cheap access to orbit.
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