Overview
- OrienSpace’s Gravity‑1 Y4 mission successfully placed nine satellites into their planned orbits after a sea launch from the East China Sea on Wednesday, July 22, completing the rocket’s third flight and a planned flight test.
- Payloads included six ‘Dongpo’ constellation satellites (two optical and four SAR), the student‑built Lilac‑3 microsatellite, the Tianyi‑49 experimental satellite, and the high‑spectral Xiguang‑2 01 satellite, all confirmed healthy by ground teams after deployment.
- Xiguang‑2 01, described by its developer as China’s first quantitative high‑spectral ‘intelligent computing’ satellite, reported normal telemetry and offers 10 m spatial and 7 nm spectral resolution with on‑board processing to speed data delivery.
- Micro‑ and student teams showed rapid in‑orbit validation: two Dongpo optical satellites returned first high‑resolution images about 1.5 hours after separation and Lilac‑3 transmitted its first video after initial telemetry checks.
- OrienSpace is advancing a larger reusable liquid launcher called Gravity‑2 with a stated near‑term goal of first‑flight readiness in Q4 2026, a shift aimed at boosting payload capacity to roughly 21.5 tonnes to support bigger constellations and lower launch costs.