The first civilian rocket with vector engine successfully made its first flight. What innovations has China made around this rocket?

1October 7 1 15: 00 12, Ceres-1 carrier rocket successfully made its first flight at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China, and successfully sent eleven apocalyptic stars into the scheduled orbit.

Ceres- 1 launch vehicle is a small solid commercial launch vehicle developed by Xinghe Power Equipment Technology Co., Ltd., which can meet the launch requirements of micro-satellites in near-earth orbit.

It is worth mentioning that this is the first launch mission carried out by Xinghe Power Company, and it is also the first time that China's private commercial rockets have entered the 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, which is another major breakthrough in China's commercial space flight.

The 1 1 Star Apocalypse constellation launched this time is a part of Apocalypse Internet of Things constellation, which is mainly used to provide data collection and transmission services. In addition, this launch is also the first application of technologies such as vertical self-aiming and vector solid thrust control in private commercial launch vehicles.

As can be seen from the video of the launch, it was a black rocket that carried out this launch mission, which was not available in previous launches. So, what's special about this type of rocket?

This time the launch mission was carried out by Ceres 1 carrier rocket, which was painted black. In addition, the whole arrow body is designed as a rod from beginning to end, which looks more unique.

Liu Baiqi, director of R&D of Ceres-1 carrier rocket: This is a rocket without wings, like a pencil. The flight control of this rocket has no wings and no air rudder. It controls the flight direction by changing the direction of engine thrust. The advantage of this kind of rocket is that it will fly more stably.

Although this rocket has no wings and rudder, its vector variable thrust engine provides it with enough flight power to control the direction according to the predetermined flight trajectory. This is another design highlight of Ceres- 1

Its engine tail nozzle can swing, and the attitude of the rocket can be accurately controlled by the swing of the engine tail nozzle. Therefore, in this case, the control force of the rocket will be greater, the control torque will be greater, and its reliability and safety will be higher.

In addition to the innovative design in power, this type of rocket successfully sent the satellite into an orbit 500 kilometers above the ground, which is also the highest orbit launched by private rockets at present. For private rockets, this not only improved their own capabilities, but also laid more confidence for subsequent development.

Liu Baiqi said: The threshold we chose for the first time is the 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, which is an operating orbit of the commercial satellite standard. At present, the microsatellites launched by many private satellite companies, ranging from 10 kg to 200 kg, are basically in sun-synchronous orbit, with heights ranging from 500 km to 700 km.

Many innovations in this rocket have improved its reliability and enabled it to launch quickly for 24 hours. In this way, more low-orbit satellites can be launched, and the navigation accuracy can be further improved with Beidou satellite.

It is understood that a series of key technologies from the power system to the control system of the Ceres-1 carrier rocket are independently designed and developed, with completely independent intellectual property rights. For a private rocket, autonomy means taking the initiative and building customized rockets according to the launch needs of customers.

Liu Baiqi, Director of R&D of Ceres-1 launch vehicle: Because through independent design, we can start from the market and analyze what the most needed rocket looks like. Combined with our own design ability, we can design rockets that meet the needs of the market and customers, improve their performance and reduce their costs.

In addition to the advantages of rapid launch and economy, with the increasing demand for launching low-orbit navigation satellites in the future, the satellites can be combined with Beidou system in China to further improve navigation accuracy.

Through the signal differential enhancement of the two networks, the positioning accuracy of the whole ground terminal is greatly improved. Now Beidou can distinguish the main road from the auxiliary road, but if the positioning accuracy of centimeter level and decimeter level is reached, we can tell whether we are pressing on the curb or not, and the positioning accuracy is very high.