China's Lijian-1 rocket launches seven satellites

A Lijian-1 Y10 carrier rocket with seven satellites onboard blasts off from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)

JIUQUAN, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday launched the Lijian-1 Y10 carrier rocket with seven satellites onboard.

The rocket blasted off at 3:33 p.m. (Beijing Time) from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China and successfully sent the satellites into planned orbit.

The Lijian-1 rocket has successfully and precisely delivered a total of 70 satellites into their preset orbits, with the total mass of the payloads exceeding 7 tonnes, according to Hu Xiaowei, chief commander of the rocket.

The rocket will help meet the global demand for diverse, high-density satellite launches, and it will subsequently have the capability to launch over 50 satellites in a single mission, Hu said.

Lijian-1 has enhanced its economies of scale through high-density launches and multi-satellite rideshare missions, which have led to a continuous decline in costs per launch, said Meng Xiangfu, deputy chief commander of Lijian-1.

The rocket has reduced the launch cost of each payload kilogram to below 10,000 U.S. dollars, Meng said. And its payload capacity for launch into a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit has reached 1.5 tonnes.

Among the seven satellites involved in Tuesday's launch mission, one has an X-band synthetic aperture radar payload featuring an imaging resolution above 1 meter and a maximum observation width of over 300 kilometers. The satellite is capable of achieving high-quality in-orbit imaging and information extraction. It also has strong operational capabilities in wide-area observation scenarios, such as polar-region and ocean scenarios.

Tianyan-26 is a lightweight and miniaturized commercial Earth remote sensing satellite that uses both visible light and infrared bands.

The major task of launching two ThumbSat satellites is to verify the platform's low-orbit communication capabilities and the transmission performance of the payload imagery, facilitating future international cooperation.

The ThumbSat satellites will carry out their in-orbit missions as scheduled. ■

A Lijian-1 Y10 carrier rocket with seven satellites onboard blasts off from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)

A Lijian-1 Y10 carrier rocket with seven satellites onboard blasts off from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)

A Lijian-1 Y10 carrier rocket with seven satellites onboard blasts off from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)

A Lijian-1 Y10 carrier rocket with seven satellites onboard blasts off from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)