{"id":236119,"date":"2026-01-16T09:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236119\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:23:08","slug":"commercial-firm-launches-rocket-from-yellow-sea-in-chinas-first-sea-based-mission-in-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236119\/","title":{"rendered":"Commercial firm launches rocket from Yellow Sea in China’s first sea-based mission in new year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

Chinese commercial space firm Galactic Energy successfully carries out a sea-based launch of its CERES-1 carrier rocket at 4:10 am off the coast of East China’s Shandong Province on January 16, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of Galactic Energy<\/p>\n

Chinese commercial space firm Galactic Energy successfully carried out a sea-based launch of its CERES-1 carrier rocket at 4:10 am on Friday, sending four satellites into orbit in China’s first sea-based launch in the new year.<\/p>\n

Launched from the coastal area of East China’s Shandong Province by the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, the launch marked the 23rd successful flight of the CERES-1 carrier rocket, Galactic Energy told the Global Times on Friday.<\/p>\n

The satellites belong to the sixth group of the Tianqi constellation, the country’s low-Earth orbit internet of Things (IoT) satellite constellation operated by Beijing Guodian High-Tech Technology Co. After the launch, the constellation has 41 satellites on the orbit, the company told the Global Times on Friday.<\/p>\n

Since its maiden sea-based flight in September 2023, the CERES-1 maritime launch platform has achieved a 100 percent success rate across six missions.<\/p>\n

The new satellites perform augmentation role after a launch on May 19, 2025 completed the first phase of the Tianqi constellation.<\/p>\n

The Tianqi constellation is China’s first low-Earth orbit satellite network dedicated to IoT communications. Designed for global coverage with satellites that are small, low-cost and energy-efficient, the constellation offers integrated space-sky-ground-sea data services. It is being used across a broad range of sectors, including forestry, agriculture, emergency response, water resources, energy, marine monitoring and smart city management, according to Guodian High-Tech.<\/p>\n

The launch came as more Chinese commercial space companies zoom in on offshore launch.<\/p>\n

Last week, Chinese private aerospace company SEPOCH began construction of the country’s first offshore reusable rocket recovery base in the Qiantang district, Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province, according to a statement the company sent to the Global Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once completed, the base will have the capacity to manufacture 25 rockets annually at scale, the company said.<\/p>\n

The company said it expects to conduct the rocket’s first flight and offshore recovery mission by the end of 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese commercial space firm Galactic Energy successfully carries out a sea-based launch of its CERES-1 carrier rocket at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-236119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}