Kinetica 2, a new carrier rocket developed in the Nansha District of Guangzhou, will launch a low-cost cargo spacecraft product for its maiden flight in 2025, according to the commercial aerospace company CAS Space in January 2024. The first flight can also carry low-orbit internet constellation satellites.
Kinetica 2 is a medium-lift, liquid-fuel rocket and the second launch vehicle developed by CAS Space, following the Kinetica 1, formerly known as ZK 1A.
Kinetica 2 has a liftoff weight of 628 metric tons and a maximum thrust of 766 tons. The rocket will be able to transport spacecraft with a combined weight of 7.8 tons into a sun-synchronous orbit or 12 tons into a low-Earth orbit.
With a commercial aerospace industrial base located in Guangzhou's Nansha, CAS Space is a Beijing-based rocket maker owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It cooperates with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Microsatellite Innovation Research Institute, which developed the low-cost cargo spacecraft product. Together, they conducted ship-rocket integration verification and key technology research. Their proposal successfully won the qualification bidding organized by the China Manned Space Agency and entered the detailed design phase.
To further reduce the cost of transporting cargo to the space station and enhance the flexibility of cargo transportation, the China Manned Space Agency issued a call for proposals in May 2023 for the low-cost cargo transportation system for the Chinese space station.
The planned Kinetica 2 launch will be the first time that a Chinese commercial aerospace company participates in the development and launch of the low-cost cargo transportation project for the Chinese space station.
As the first commercial aerospace industrial base in China, the CAS Space industrial base was completed and put into operation in Nansha District of Guangzhou in January 2023. The total planning area of the base is about 400 thousand square meters, which is mainly for the production, testing, and assembly of carrier rockets. It can produce 30 rockets annually, which will drive the upstream and downstream industrial chain of the aerospace manufacturing industry in Guangdong.
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