China have built a Smart Dragon-3 rocket, which is a solid fueled orbital launch vehicle that is made to carry 150 kg to 700 km in the orbit. This article is all about the rocket that is heavily built by China and the missions it will carry, read till end to know more.
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China’s Smart Dragon Rocket
Jielong that is also known as agile dragon or Smart Dragon, is a solid fueled orbital launch vehicle that is developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology that can carry around 150 kg of weight to 700 km in the altitude sun synchronous orbit.
The rocket is 19.5 meter tall and 1.2 wide, and weighs around 23.1 tons. It is a 4 stage orbital rocket. The making of the rocket took about 18 months, it uses propulsion technology from Chinese missile programs. The mission aims to earn around 6 million dollars per launch.
The launch vehicle rocket is feature as inverted position forth stage motor and have the payload space during initial portion of the launch, the rocket rotates after the third stage separation in the orbit.
Maiden flight of the rocket was Jielong 1 on 17 August 2019, and it was full successful. It had delivered three small satellites into the polar orbit. The satellites were the sequence of Xingshidai 5, the second rocket was Tianqi 2 experimental satellite and the third one in the mission was Qiancheng 01 from the Qiansheng Exploration Technology. The launch was done from Jiuquan, with the rocket taking off from the road mobile transposter.
Dragon rocket third and previous launch
The rockets are made with the capabilities of sending around 20 satellite in one launch, this has gained approval after expecting the maiden flight in 2022.
New mission of the rocket is called Smart Dragon-3 rocket as well known as Jielong-3, third mission of the rocket. It the latest member of the CALT Smart Dragon Commercial rocket family, they have gained the approval on December 31st, 2020. This rocket is the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People Political Consultative Conference.
This rocket is the nose cone is the largest and strongest in the smart dragon family, having a big 2.64 meter with 3.35, meter of the diameter in the above cone. It is fully capable of sending the payloads of 1.5 tons to the 500 km Sun synchronous orbit.
Recently, CAS announced that the smart dragon-3 rocket will aim to meet the market needs of launching a large scale commercial satellite constellation and will be ready to send 20 satellites in one launch.
The smart dragon-3 rocket is capable of having both land and sea based launch.
Rollout of the rocket will reduce the cost of payloads to 10000 dollars per kg, this highlights the models strongest competitors in the field.
(More on China working on rigid rocket to improve overall space capabilities Here)
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Testing and assembling of Smart Dragon-3 Rocket
Jielong-3 (Smart Dragon-3) solid rocket:
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) August 4, 2021
– Four stages
– Diameter of 2.64 metres
– Takeoff mass of 140 tons
– 1.5 tonnes to 500 km sun-sync orbit
– fairing diameter of 3.35 metres
– draws on Jielong-1, Long March 11, etc
– land or sea launch
– Up to 20 satellites per launch
The testing and assembling of the Smart Dragon-3 rocket will be carried out in Haiyang port in Haiyang. The site is dubbed as DongFang space port, it is specially known for sea based space launches. It is also hoped to the execution of a commercial launch service that can be shortened to six months, they are greatly developing of the rocket.
China have successfully launched the first Smart Dragon commercial rocket on 17th August, 2019, from North West China Gansu Province at Jiquan satellite launch centre.
After arriving the launch site, the SD 1 is ready to launch with ready within 13 days, compared to the first counterparts, which will take around 20 days.
The SD 1 is capable of sending a payload of 200 kg to 500km to orbit, with the cost of 20000 dollars per kg, about more than 50 mission are from different countries.
Next mission of the rocket is second flight is expected to launch around July this year, the mission will be a big budget mission which will launch more than 15 satellites launches.
(More on What are China’s Plans for the future in space here)
(More on Jilin 1 Satellite – China launched remote sensing commercial satellite successfully here)
How China use Smart Dragon-3 rocket in future
China Academy of science is developing an industrial base in Guangzhou, making a space arm of Geely and a car that is built to work at low earth constellation for the driving in air. It is possible to start the contract of the mission soon.
Private firms are developing the reusable liquid launcher, which are operated from the light lift solid rockets.
China is also planning to launch the new space ports that will be supporting the space sector boom, which will be a commercial mission in the meeting of the growing demand for launch.
They are planning more than 50 launches in 2022, they are just handful with the use of the solid Long March 11 and the Jielong 3 launchers. They will also launch the first liquid core and solid side booster from the new launching centre at Taiyuan.
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In the end
China is making history by launching many, rockets and developing more and more company for the launch of the satellites that are earning good profit.
The mission seems different from other countries, such as sea based launch or liquid core booster.
They are trying new things that can be useful to us in the future, the mission of flying car seems more interesting than others.
I hope they set new records and be successful in their missions.