China continues to upgrade multi-satellite separation system of carrier rocket

China has continuously upgraded its multi-satellite separation system of the Lijian-1 carrier rocket, said Shi Xiaoning, chief designer of the Lijian-1 Y5 rocket from CAS Space, a Beijing-based rocket maker.

The country on Monday launched the Lijian-1 Y5 commercial carrier rocket with 15 satellites onboard.

The rocket blasted off at 12:03 (Beijing Time) from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, and sent the 15 satellites, including the Jilin-1 Gaofen series, Yunyao-1 series, Xiguang-1 series, and a remote-sensing satellite launched for Oman, into their planned orbits. The launch marked the fifth flight mission of the Lijian-1 carrier rocket series.

Multi-satellite launch, which sends a number of satellites into orbit in a single launch, is a highly demanding technology that has been mastered only by a few countries.

With the continuous development of satellite technology in China, especially in the field of civilian satellites, the trend of batch launching of small satellites and forming constellations in space is gradually becoming mainstream. This type of multi-satellite launch places high demands on the separation of the satellites and the rocket.

"For this multi-satellite launch mission, we have added a satellite-rocket separation control unit and a satellite-rocket separation resistor box, which can provide more separation timing sequence and separation collection capabilities, enabling better adaptation of our control system to such multiple satellite launch missions," he said.

The chief designer also introduced that the upgraded technology used together with a large-diameter fairing can carry out the mission of launching over 50 satellites at once in the future, contributing to the subsequent construction of China's large-scale low-orbit satellite internet.

"Due to the increasing demand for stacked launch, including multi-satellite missions, it can adapt to more launch missions in the future, such as launching 18 or 36 satellites on a carrier rocket," he said.

China continues to upgrade multi-satellite separation system of carrier rocket

China's domestically produced large passenger aircraft, the C919, has begun flying a new route linking Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province, with Wenzhou, a major economic city in east China's Zhejiang Province, according to the route's operator, China Southern Airlines. Monday's launch of the Guangzhou–Wenzhou service marks the regular deployment of the C919 on passenger flights between the two cities. China Southern Airlines plans to operate two round-trip flights daily on the route.

The C919 is a narrow-body passenger jet with a maximum capacity of 192 seats. It is China's first self-developed trunk jetliner, built to international airworthiness standards and featuring independently registered intellectual property rights.

China Southern Airlines, the country's largest carrier, has taken delivery of 10 C919 aircraft. As of Monday, its C919 fleet had operated more than 8,300 flights, carrying over 1.13 million passengers and serving 21 destinations.

China's homegrown C919 aircraft launches new domestic air route