{"id":108655,"date":"2025-08-31T12:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T12:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/108655\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T12:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T12:22:07","slug":"china-launches-tiny-mexican-satellites-in-rare-north-american-rocket-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/108655\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches tiny Mexican satellites in rare North American rocket contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexico has become the second country in North America to send satellites into orbit using a Chinese rocket<\/a> \u2013 more than half a decade after Canada blazed the trail.<\/p>\n

Two satellites from ThumbSat, a start-up based in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego, were among a batch of seven launched into sun-synchronous orbit earlier this month by Beijing-based CAS Space on board its solid-fuel Kinetica-1 rocket.<\/p>\n

ThumbSat hailed the launch of its femtosatellites \u2013 each weighing less than 100 grams \u2013 as Mexico\u2019s first commercial mission to low Earth orbit. \u201cThe mission is simple but powerful: to prove that satellites no longer need to be big to be meaningful,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

ThumbSat-1 carries a selfie payload while ThumbSat-2 is equipped with an artistic one. The company also plans to install small, low-cost receiving stations across Mexico, allowing students and amateur users to pick up signals and take part in the mission.<\/p>\n

CAS Space said the launch showed the growing international interest in its rockets, which offered \u201ca good balance of cost and reliability\u201d. It also called the mission a step forward in China\u2019s efforts to expand space cooperation worldwide.<\/p>\n

It was \u201ca milestone for China\u2019s entry into the North American commercial launch market\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n

The two ThumbSat satellites were developed in Mexico, with CAS Space providing a custom-built separation deployer designed for modular upgrades and future scalability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mexico has become the second country in North America to send satellites into orbit using a Chinese rocket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[77861,64,63,3686,11308,2065,77862,512,77856,77857,77859,2184,2041,5886,128,11298,285,77858,77860],"class_list":["post-108655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ahalya-araes","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beijing","tag-brazil","tag-canada","tag-cas-space","tag-china","tag-china-brazil-earth-resources-satellite-programme","tag-international-traffic-in-arms-regulations-itar","tag-kinetica-1-rocket","tag-mexico","tag-north-america","tag-san-diego","tag-science","tag-south-america","tag-space","tag-thumbsat","tag-tijuana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}