{"id":241191,"date":"2025-10-26T03:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T03:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/241191\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T03:32:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T03:32:16","slug":"rocket-report-china-tests-falcon-9-lookalike-nasas-moon-rocket-fully-stacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/241191\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Report: China tests Falcon 9 lookalike; NASA\u2019s Moon rocket fully stacked"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aiming for LEO \u2026 This will be the first flight of Innospace\u2019s HANBIT-Nano launch vehicle, standing roughly 72 feet (22 meters) tall with a diameter of 4.6 feet (1.4 meters). The two-stage rocket is powered by hybrid propulsion, consuming a mixture of paraffin and liquid oxygen. For its debut flight, the rocket will target an orbit about 300 kilometers (186 miles) high with a batch of small satellites from customers in South Korea, Brazil, and India. According to Innospace, HANBIT-Nano can lift about 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of payload into orbit.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"81\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/mediuml.png\" class=\"center full\" alt=\"\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>A new record for rocket reuse.\u00a0SpaceX\u2019s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida on October 19 set a new record for reusable rockets, <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/space\/2025\/10\/spacex-launches-10000th-starlink-satellite-with-no-sign-of-slowing-down\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ars reports<\/a>. It marked the 31st launch of the company\u2019s most-flown Falcon 9 booster. The rocket landed on SpaceX\u2019s recovery ship in the Atlantic Ocean to be returned to Florida for a 32nd flight. Several more rockets in SpaceX\u2019s inventory are nearing their 30th launch. In all, SpaceX has more than 20 Falcon 9 boosters in its fleet on both the East and West Coasts. SpaceX engineers are now certifying the Falcon 9 boosters for up to 40 flights apiece.<\/p>\n<p>10,000 and counting \u2026 SpaceX\u2019s two launches last weekend weren\u2019t just noteworthy for Falcon 9 lore. Hours after setting the new booster reuse record, SpaceX deployed a batch of 28 Starlink satellites from a different rocket after lifting off from California. This mission propelled SpaceX\u2019s Starlink program past a notable milestone. With the satellites added to the constellation on Sunday, the company has delivered more than 10,000 mass-produced Starlink spacecraft to low-Earth orbit. The exact figure stands at 10,006 satellites, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/planet4589.org\/space\/con\/star\/stats.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tabulation by Jonathan McDowell<\/a>, an astrophysicist who expertly tracks comings and goings between Earth and space. About 8,700 of these Starlink satellites are still in orbit, with SpaceX adding more every week.<\/p>\n<p>China is on the cusp of something big. Launch startup LandSpace is in the final stages of preparations for the first flight of its Zhuque-3 rocket and a potentially landmark mission for China, <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/landspace-begins-final-preparations-for-chinas-first-orbital-launch-and-landing-attempt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Space News reports<\/a>. LandSpace said it completed the first phase of the Zhuque-3 rocket\u2019s inaugural launch campaign this week. The Zhuque-3 is the largest commercial rocket developed to date in China, nearly matching the size and performance of SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9, with nine first stage engines and a single upper stage engine. One key difference is that the Zhuque-3 burns methane fuel, while Falcon 9\u2019s engines consume kerosene. Most notably, LandSpace will attempt to land the rocket\u2019s first stage booster at a location downrange from the launch site, similar to the way SpaceX lands Falcon 9 boosters on drone ships at sea. Zhuque-3\u2019s first stage will aim for a land-based site in an experiment that could pave the way for LandSpace to reuse rockets in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aiming for LEO \u2026 This will be the first flight of Innospace\u2019s HANBIT-Nano launch vehicle, standing roughly 72&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-241191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241191","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=241191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}