It will continue to invest in the liquid oxygen methane engines and the reusing of rockets, to meet most of the market demand.
Image credit: LandSpace website.
Recently, LandSpace (蓝箭航天) has completed the series C round of financing, raising capital of more than CNY 500 million, the investor is Country Garden Venture Capital (碧桂园创投). As of December, LandSpace has completed a total of over CNY 600 million in financing in 2019.
According to LandSpace, the capital raised in this round will be mainly used for the development and launch preparation of ZQ-2 liquid rocket and the verification of rocket reuse technology. In the future, it will continue to strengthen the development and mass production capabilities, core processes and test support capabilities of the ZQ-2 rocket and TianQue engine, and gradually begin technical iterations to maintain the continued leadership of LandSpace in the field of commercial liquid rockets.
LandSpace is a Chinese company engaged in the development and operation of rockets. Focusing on the small and medium-sized commercial aerospace application market, the company is committed to the development of liquid-fuel rocket engines and commercial launch vehicles with independent intellectual property rights. It designs, manufactures, and tests products with highly integrated design capabilities and stand-alone innovation capabilities.
LandSpace is often seen as China's counterpart of SpaceX. But it is not the only one. Globally, a dozen private rocket companies have emerged in recent years. Some companies are not as big as SpaceX, but show their potential. One of LandSpace's overseas counterparts is OneWeb Satellites, which is a joint venture between Airbus, the global leader in the aerospace industry, and OneWeb, a company founded in 2012 that will deploy and operate a constellation of up to 900 low-earth-orbit satellites providing global high-speed internet access.
The aerospace industry is ushering the era of commercialization. Taking cost and demand into consideration, liquid oxygen methane engines are being seen as the development trend for private space start-ups. In terms of launching satellites, building the low-earth orbit small satellite network could be one of the most important business models to generate profits. Companies in those frontiers are possibly being outstanding in the future.
EqualOcean has selected LandSpace and OneWeb as our Top 50 Global Smart Manufacturing Startups in 2019 in the 'Smart Manufacturing: Trends and Startups 2019' report, under the commercial spaceflight vertical, as we evaluate their performance in 2019 and see their promising future.
Check this link for the report: https://equalocean.com/manufacturing/20191207-smart-manufacturing-trends-and-startups-2019