China unveils new medium-sized rocket for the first time. China’s new Long March 12 rocket successfully made its maiden flight on Saturday, putting two experimental satellites into orbit and carrying enhanced capabilities that will allow China’s large launch vehicle, which is under development, to send astronauts to the moon. A high-thrust engine was tested. The Long March 12 is the newest member of China’s Long March rocket family, which has been flying since China launched its first satellite into orbit in 1970, Ars newspaper reported.
Rockets likely to be used to deploy mega-constellations …Like China’s other existing rockets, the Long March 12 configuration that flew on Saturday is completely disposable. At the Zhuhai Air Show earlier this month, China’s largest rocket company displayed another version of the Long March 12 with a reusable first stage, but there were few design details. The Long March 12 is powered by four kerosene-fueled YF-100K engines in its first stage, generating more than 1.1 million pounds (5,000 kilonewtons) of thrust at full throttle. These engines are upgraded, high-thrust versions of the YF-100 engines used in several other types of Long March rockets. (Submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)
Falcon 9 rocket achieves several notable milestones. Approximately 10 days ago, SpaceX launched a constellation of Starlink v2-mini satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the 400th successful Falcon 9 mission. Additionally, SpaceX said this was the Falcon program’s 375th booster recovery. Finally, with this mission, the company reduced the record booster landing-to-launch time from 21 days to 13 days and 12 hours, Ars reports.
Quickly reusable shuttle …After all, in November SpaceX launched 16 Falcon 9 rockets. The previous record for the most monthly launches by a Falcon 9 rocket was 14. SpaceX is on pace to launch more than 135 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions this year. This is a significant number because NASA’s space shuttle has been in orbit for 30 years, flying 135 missions. The space shuttle was a very complex vehicle, and unlike the Falcon 9 rocket, it had a human on board for every mission. But there is some historical significance in the fact that the Falcon rocket can fly as many missions in a year as the Space Shuttle did during its lifetime.
