Cosmoleap emerges with a reusable rocket!
Cosmoleap (大航跃迁) has made its public appearence with snazzy renders of a partially reusable rocket.
Cosmoleap (大航跃迁), or Beijing Dahang Yuejian Aerospace Science and Technology Co. (北京大航跃迁航天科技有限公司), has revealed themselves to the wider world in early July. Their existence on the Western Internet was discovered by a posting on Zhaopin, a platform for employers to find talent and for job seekers to find employment.
The posting on Zhaopin lists the company as headquartered in Beijing’s Fengtai district, and having been established on February 6th 2024. In terms of cash, the company has 5.26 million Yuan Renminbi, or approximately 724 thousand United States Dollars, in registered capital.
Details on Cosmoleap’s launch vehicle are hard to find, but images from a conference to potential investors and press were leaked. The leaked slides from the presentation place the launch vehicle’s height at approximately 75 meters from the engines to the top of the fairing, a diameter was not specified but they do reference a “Falcon 9 body”.
For payload capacity, the leaked slides claim the vehicle will initially be able to lift 6,250 kilograms with booster recovery, or 10,400 kilograms with the booster expended. Oddly these payload claims were for a low Earth orbit altitude of 1000 kilometers, with an unknown inclination. According to Cosmoleap's leaked slides, the rocket is being designed for large low Earth orbit satellite constellations, more on this later.
Recovery of the launch vehicles’ first-stage boosters is where Cosmoleap has departed from most of China’s commercial recoverable rocket plans, except that it has kept grid fins for unpowered descent. Despite being roughly the same size as a Falcon 9 booster, the company is opting to catch its boosters on tower arms, like SpaceX is planning for its Super Heavy boosters. These towers will are expected to be smaller, and able to support less weight, to accommodate the boosters.
Cosmoleap is hoping to lean on China’s domestic crane manufacturers and industry, based on the leaked slides, during the development of its catch towers as the country has one of the most capable heavy machine industries. Once a booster is caught on a tower, the company believes it will be able to re-fly them for up to fifteen flights initially. Another leaked slide from the presentation shows the catch towers downrange from the launch site, implying that the launch vehicle's current design restricts it from performing a return to launch site profile.
The company has shared very few details on the rest of the launch vehicle. Once again looking to the leaked slides, the vehicle might be made of stainless steel, like SpaceX’s Starship and LandSpace’s Zhuque-3, but this could have been a stylistic choice. Multiple renders do give the vehicle just nine engines on the first-stage however.
Cosmoleap’s slides also showed that the company has already produced some of the smaller hardware needed, like computers and attitude control thrusters, but did not give out a less-than-vague timeline for the launch vehicle.
Based on the timeline above, once again from a leaked slide, the company is aiming to perform ‘hop’ tests in 2024 and 2025 before a debut launch in 2026, regular operational flights would follow beginning in 2027. Cosmoleap did however specify that the main priority of launch vehicle development was to produce a low-cost and reliable system with re-use implemented later on if necessary.
Cosmoleap targeting large satellite constellations is unsurprising to most who follow China’s commercial space sector, as the government is seeking to foster a launch market via two state-backed satellite internet constellations. Due to their relative infancy in the sector, the company will likely launch payloads for these constellations after the pre-established and well-known companies, like LandSpace and Galactic Energy.