Battle for comeback: Ceres-1 Yaojiu carrier rocket launched successfully

Thank you, Mr. Air, a netizen of CTOnews.com, for your clue delivery! CTOnews.com, December 5, according to @ CCTV military Weibo news, 07:33 today, Ceres-1 Yaojiu carrier rocket was successfully launched from China's Jiuquan Satellite launch Center, carrying Tianyan 16 and Xingchi-1A were successfully put into orbit, and the launch mission was a complete success.

This mission is the 11th flight of the Ceres-1 rocket carrier.

CTOnews.com noted that the launch was a comeback battle for Ceres-1 since the Rockets' defeat on National Day holiday. 12:59:10 on September 21, 2023, the Ceres-1 remote 11 rocket carrying Jilin-1 with a high score of 04B blasted off from the LA-95A station at the Jiuquan launch site and flew for about 67.50 seconds.

After returning to zero, the flight fault of Yao11 rocket is located in the ablation anomaly of the expansion section of the nozzle of the first-stage engine. During the processing of the screw hole in the assembly of the expansion section of the nozzle, the improper operation leads to the internal defects of the carbon cloth layer, resulting in ablation of the expansion section, which leads to the instability of the first flight attitude. In view of the problem positioning, the company instructs the supporting production units to take a number of improvement measures, such as improving process operation procedures, refining operation requirements, strengthening operation procedures training, optimizing production process inspection, and so on.

The "Ceres-1" is a four-stage small carrier rocket developed by the Xinghe Power Aerospace Company. The first, second, and third stages use solid power, and the fourth stage uses integrated liquid power for orbit control and attitude control. The arrow is about 20m long, 1.4m in diameter, 33 tons in take-off mass and 60 tons in take-off thrust. It has a capacity of 400kg in low Earth orbit (LEO), 300kg in 500km SSO and 270kg in 700km SSO. At present, the arrow has been launched at sea and on land, and it is the second type of carrier rocket in China to achieve this goal after the "long National Day", which is of great significance for carrying out high-frequency and high-density launches.

At present, Ceres-1 is the private commercial launch vehicle with the largest number of launches and successes in China.