TL 2 rocket hits major milestone with successful orbital mission

The TL 2, a carrier rocket model developed by Beijing-based company Space Pioneer, reached orbit on Sunday afternoon, becoming the first privately built, liquid-fuel rocket in China to fulfill an orbital mission.

The rocket blasted off at 4:48 pm from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China and soon placed a remote-sensing satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit about 500 kilometers above the Earth, Space Pioneer said in a news release.

Before the TL 2, all liquid-propellant rocket types developed by private enterprises, including SpaceX, Virgin Orbit and China's LandSpace, failed their first flight.

The successful launch also made Space Pioneer the third private company in China that has carried out an orbital mission. i-Space and Galactic Energy, two other space start-ups in Beijing, achieved this feat using their own solid-propellant rocket models. Solid-propellant rockets are easier to design and make than liquid-fuel types, but have smaller transport capacity and cannot launch large satellites or deploy spacecraft to high orbits.

In December, LandSpace launched the first of its ZQ 2 rocket model at the Jiuquan center in a first attempt by China's private space sector to use a liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit. Unfortunately, a minor malfunction took place around the end of the flight and derailed the rocket.

The TL 2, which stands for Tianlong 2 or Sky Dragon 2, is 32.8 meters long and 3.35 meters wide and has a liftoff weight of 153 metric tons. The rocket is capable of sending satellites with a combined weight of 1.5 tons to a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km or spacecraft weighing 2 tons to a low-Earth orbit.