On Monday, January 13, 2025, China successfully launched its Smart Dragon-3 commercial carrier rocket from the waters off Haiyang in Shandong Province. The rocket soared into space and successfully deployed ten CentiSpace-01 satellites into their designated orbits. This achievement marks China’s first sea-based rocket launch of 2025, carried out by the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.
The Smart Dragon-3, developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, is a light-lift solid rocket designed to place payloads into sun-synchronous orbits up to 500 kilometers in altitude. Capable of carrying up to 1,500 kilograms for commercial clients, the rocket measures 31 meters in length and weighs 140 tons at liftoff.
The fourth Smart Dragon-3 mission deployed eight remote sensing satellites on a rideshare basis. The satellites are expected to be used for land and resource monitoring, urban planning, and disaster management. Among the satellites was the Jilin 1 spacecraft, built by the People’s Republic of China’s state-owned main space contractor, CAS Space. The spacecraft will capture high-resolution all-weather images of Earth, which will be used for disaster warnings and aiding relief efforts.
With trips to a new space station, a sample-return lunar mission, and a fly-by of Uranus on the calendar, China’s ambitious space program has a busy schedule ahead. The country plans to conduct 100 launches through the end of 2024, up 40% from last year, as it seeks to overtake the United States in space exploration and become a dominant power beyond Earth.
A key piece in this drive is the newly established Dongfang spaceport in Haiyang, which began operations with a launch in June 2019 using a Long March 11 carrier rocket on a converted barge at the Yellow Sea. The facility has been hailed as an important development in China’s capability to carry out high-frequency sea-based rocket launches and lay a foundation for future rocket recoveries at sea.
During the second half of 2024, the spaceport will host launches using the Jielong-3 and the Long March 4C solid rockets. The latter is expected to fly a pair of Shenzhou crewed and Tianzhou cargo missions to the Tiangong space station and will also be used to deploy the Chang’e 6 sample-return lunar probe and the Chang’e 7 lunar surface rover on two separate occasions. The Dongfang site will eventually be expanded to host manned and uncrewed spacecraft. The construction of a new, large floating launch platform will be the next major step in developing the Dongfang spaceport.