Credit: OrienSpace

Orienspace Technology (Shandong) Co., Ltd is a commercial aerospace enterprise in China founded in 2020. The company designs and manufactures Gravity series launch vehicles. Through the research and development of the Gravity"series of launch vehicles, OrienSpace has created a series of diversified aerospace transportation products such as single-use, recyclable and reusable, and manned flight, and quickly formed a low-cost, large-scale, efficient and fast launch service capabilities, covering various types of orbits such as LEO, SSO, GTO and GEO. Gravity-1 made its maiden flight in January 2024, and it is able to carry 6.5-ton-payload to the LEO, allowing for deploying large-scale satellite constellations. Gravity-1 is positioned to meet the needs of large-scale networking of small and medium-sized satellites in low orbit. It is characterized by large space/simple launch/quick response. It is the world's first all-solid bundled medium-sized launch vehicle. Gravity-1 adopts a three-stage and a half configuration of core stage + boost, equipped with 4 boosters. The core stage and boost stage both use solid engines and flexible swing nozzles. The third core stage can also use liquid oxygen kerosene. engine to further enhance the carrying capacity.

Gravity-1

Gravity-1 Name: Gravity-1 (Yinli-1 / YL-1)
Manufacturer: OrienSpace
Height: 29,4 m / 96 ft
Fairing diameter: 4,2 m / 13,7 ft
Mass: 405 ton
Capacity:
  • LEO: 6,5 ton / 13,000 lbs
  • SSO: 4,2 ton / 8,400 lbs
Stages: 4 (4 x solid fuel)
Thrust: 5,880 kN
Cost per launch: Unknown
Launch sites:
  • Floating barge in the Yellow Sea (China)
First launch: January 11, 2024
Launches:

Gravity-1

Gravity-1 launch statistics

Images: OrienSpace

Kris Christiaens's Avatar

Kris Christiaens

This article was published by FutureSpaceFlight founder and chief editor Kris Christiaens. Kris Christiaens has been passionate and fascinated by spaceflight and space exploration all his life and has written hundreds of articles on space projects, the commercial space industry and space missions over the past 20 years for magazines, books and websites. In late 2021, he founded the website FutureSpaceFlight with the goal of promoting new space companies and commercial space projects and compiling news of these start-ups and companies on one website.