Cosmoleap Performs Short Drop Test With Recovery Tower
Cosmoleap has started the year with another tower test ahead of a possible flight this year.
Recently, on January 17th, Cosmoleap announced that it had conducted another test of its rocket recovery tower. This test again involved a partial pathfinder of the company’s Leap (跃迁一号) launch vehicle.
For this test Leap’s partial pathfinder was lifted into the air between the recovery towers arms and then dropped a short distance. Once dropped the arms then caught the pathfinder on two small pins.
In the video released by Cosmoleap, two small technology demonstration buffers were used to soften the catch. These buffers soften the catch using six pistons each, for twelve in total. In its blog post about the test, Cosmoleap stated:
“The tower arm buffer test is one of the important milestones in the key technology verification of the recovery system of the Leap launch vehicle. The test simulated the whole process of tower arm buffer when the recovery tower captured a first-stage of the rocket, verifying the rationality of the buffer system design and the matching between the rocket and the tower.”
“The test completed a total of 12 working conditions of the simulated rocket recovery tower arm test, which fully verified the buffering performance and effect of the buffer mechanism under the different working conditions of the simulated rocket falling arm speed and position. The test obtained the complete buffer performance curve of the recovery test tower, and measured the acceleration dynamic response and dynamic stress test data of the tower body, the holding arm, the elevated platform, and the simulated rocket under the landing impact.”
Also in the test footage was a graph containing data regarding pressures on the buffers in four areas. These pressures rested at 0.1MPa prior to the drop and spiked to 1MPa upon impact then settling at 0.4MPa afterward.
Cosmoleap’s latest tower test also came the day after SpaceX caught its second rocket booster using its own tower recovery system. As such the company commented on the feat saying:
“It is worth noting that on January 16th, local time in the United States, the United States Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) carried out the seventh test launch of the “Starship” heavy-lift launch vehicle in South Texas. After the booster burned off most of its fuel, SpaceX guided it to separate from the Starship spacecraft and return to the launch site, eventually recovering the rocket with a metal arm shaped like a “chopstick” that was successfully clamped onto the rocket. This is another successful attempt after the fifth test flight in October 2024. The successful test flight further verified the feasibility and economics of tower recovery.”
(Contextual links added)
If there are any problems with this translation please reach out and correct me.
Additionally, a week ago Cosmoleap shared that it had completed a series of tests for its 100-newton and 300-newton thrusters, which are needed to control both stages of the rocket in space and thin parts of the atmosphere. Leap’s flight computer also completed an electrical system test with the rocket engine’s systems on January 14th.
Toward the end of last year, footage was released of the recovery tower performing movement tests along with imagery of the rocket’s pathfinder being lifted by the tower. The tower arms buffers were installed for the lifting test last year.
Since emerging six months ago in July 2024 Cosmoleap has raised 100 million Yuan, equivalent to 13.6 million United States Dollars (as of January 17th), in addition to having approximately 5.26 million Yuan (718,000 United States Dollars) before its first funding round.
What do we know about Leap?
Leap (跃迁一号) is Cosmoleap’s (大航跃迁), two-stage partially reusable launch vehicle that burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen in both stages. The vehicle is 75 meters tall with a diameter of 4 meters for both the first-stage, second-stage, and fairing. At liftoff, the vehicle will weigh no more than 500 tons while nine engines generating 720 tons of thrust will carry the vehicle off of a launchpad.
For recovery, four grid fins will guide the first-stage booster to a catch tower downrange from the launch site. A single engine will ignite to slow and guide the booster into the catch tower’s arms for recovery. These recovery towers will be built both inland and on floating platforms for sea-based recovery. Once recovered each booster is planned to fly up to twenty times.
The payload capacity of Leap is planned to be 6,250 kilograms with booster recovery or 10,400 kilograms with the booster expended to a low Earth orbit altitude of 1,000 kilometers.
A debut flight of Leap is planned for 2025, previously being scheduled for 2026. It is unknown if this first flight will include an attempt to recover the first stage. Cosmoleap has previously said that the main priority of development was to produce a low-cost and reliable launch vehicle with reuse implemented later on if necessary.