SMALL LAUNCHERS

While awaiting the Long March 5, many of the most interesting developments in world rocketry have been at the other, small end of the market. There was a huge growth in the requirement for small payloads in low Earth orbit. Several countries developed new small launchers, like the European Vega, while, in the United States, the Orbital Sciences Corporation developed Pegasus, a small rocket lifted to altitude by a Lockheed Tristar airplane, from whence it was dropped, ignited, and flew on to orbit.

In the late 1990s, China redeveloped the old Long March 1 rocket, used only for its first two satellite missions, as a new small satellite launcher. After a suborbital test flight in November 1997, it sought foreign customers but fell foul of the American embargo. China then tried another approach. Following the Russian experience of converting solid-fuel missiles into launchers (the Topol), China then developed a small four-stage solid-fuelled truck-based launcher, called Kaitouzhe (“Pioneer” in English) or KT-1. The aim was to place 40-100-kg payloads into 300-km-high polar orbit from a mobile launcher. Compared to the liquid-fuel rocket fleet, this was a small launcher, only 14 m tall and weighing only 20 tonnes. Its nearest comparator was the Russian START launcher, briefly used for small payloads in the early 2000s, based on the SS-20 missile called, coincidentally, Pioner.

Models of Kaitouzhe went on display at the Shenzhen 4th International High and New Technology Achievements Fair in October 2002. There were unconfirmed reports that an attempt was made to launch Kaitouzhe 1 on 15th September 2002, but it failed because of a guidance fault. A second launching took place from Taiyuan on 16th September 2003, which appears to have suffered a fourth-stage failure. Stamps were even issued in Xian to mark its maiden flight in August 2005, but it never happened. The Kaitouzhe then disappeared from view, unexpectedly reappearing at the Zhuhai air show in 2009. Not only that, but a longer version was modeled – the KT-1A, with a mass of 30 tonnes and able to put 200 kg into 700 km orbit, as well as one with two strap-ons, the KT-1B, mass 65 tonnes, able to put 500 kg into the same orbit. Later, they acquired the name of the Long March 11 (CZ-11). Regardless of its future, the Asian Joint Conference on Propulsion and Power, held in Xian in March 2012, heard of initial Chinese preparations for a new generation of solid-fuel launchers, using the segmented design typical of the American Space Shuttle.