World's First! LandSpace's Zhuque-2 Liquid Oxygen-Methane Rocket Launches Successfully | Xinwen NEWS

At 9:00 AM on July 12, the Zhuque-2 Y2 liquid oxygen-methane carrier rocket, independently developed by LandSpace, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and successfully entered its predetermined orbit, becoming the world's first liquid oxygen-methane rocket to achieve orbital flight. This marks a major breakthrough for China in the application of new low-cost liquid propellants for carrier rockets.

LandSpace is a portfolio company of Heart Capital. Regarding this successful launch, Yan Han, Founding Partner of Heart Capital, offered his congratulations:

"Congratulations to LandSpace on eight years of perseverance — achieving humanity's first orbital launch of a liquid oxygen-methane rocket. Heart Capital focuses on China, focuses on technology, and focuses on early-stage investment. We began researching China's aerospace sector five years ago, and remain steadfastly bullish on the Chinese aerospace market's increasing support and openness to private enterprises. We have invested in LandSpace, which specializes in liquid oxygen-methane technology, and Micro-nano Star, a leading company focused on high-end satellite R&D and manufacturing. Both companies have recently achieved major milestones, successfully becoming standouts among China's private aerospace enterprises and even global space companies. We offer our warmest congratulations and deepest admiration to these entrepreneurial heroes who persist in doing the hard but right things. This also encourages us, as early-stage venture capitalists, to continue doing investment with heart — pragmatic, low-profile, long-term, and persistently non-consensus. Together, let us do our part to contribute to China's technological development!"

The Zhuque-2 Y2 launch vehicle, powered by liquid oxygen and methane, features a two-stage configuration with a 3.35-meter body diameter, 49.5-meter total height, 219-ton liftoff mass, and 268-ton liftoff thrust. The payload fairing has a maximum diameter of 3.35 meters and total length of 8.237 meters. The first stage uses four TQ-12 80-ton liquid oxygen-methane engines in parallel, while the second stage combines one TQ-12 80-ton liquid oxygen-methane engine with one TQ-11 10-ton liquid oxygen-methane vernier engine.

The success of this mission validated the Zhuque-2 rocket's system designs, laying a solid foundation for the next phase of reusable rocket development. According to reports, the Zhuque-2 rocket will soon commence batch launch operations. LandSpace will continue to focus on the Zhuque series of carrier rockets as its core product, providing launch services to the market while continuously optimizing and iterating to further improve rocket performance, striving to offer the market low-cost, high-performance, heavy-lift rocket products.

Since its founding in 2015, LandSpace has consistently upheld and carried forward the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" spirit, committed to innovation-driven development, and adhered to autonomous mastery of key technologies, independent development of key products, independent control of key processes, and independent construction of key facilities — forming a complete new R&D capability driven by digital tools.

This flight test primarily verified the correctness and rationality of the carrier rocket's test launch and full-flight process plans, as well as the compatibility of interfaces between systems, laying groundwork for subsequent formal commercial flights.

Source: The Paper | Image source: The Paper

Founded in 2022, Heart Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund focused on technology and digitalization in China.

Heart Capital's team is primarily composed of Yan Han, Founding Partner of Lightspeed China, core investors, a chief financial officer, and senior investors from industry backgrounds. The team's past investments include Series A investments in Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV, 09868.HK), Full Truck Alliance (NYSE: YMM), as well as FinVolution (NYSE: FINV), Fan Deng Reading, RoboSense, World Logistics, Micro-nano Star, LandSpace, Lanhu, Starfield, and others.

Rooted in China with a global perspective, Heart Capital is dedicated to finding true value in non-consensus. Heart Capital respects the value of "people" and champions the potential of "heart," looking forward to accompanying more young Chinese entrepreneurs in strengthening China and going global.