Despite another relatively quiet month for launches, progress in the Chinese commercial space sector continues at pace. Two companies are progressing towards performing 10km hop tests of their prototype reusable vehicles and the race is on to become China’s first rocket to reach orbit and propulsively land its first stage.
The first batch of satellites for the planned G60 Qianfan, or Thousand Sails, mega constellation launched in early August. Meanwhile, the nation continues to advance its space program towards its goals of conducting a crewed mission to the Moon and returning samples from Mars in the near future.