OneSpace, a startup based in Beijing, on Thursday became the country’s first private company to launch its own rocket.
China’s private space sector has achieved liftoff.
OneSpace, a startup based in Beijing, on Thursday became the country’s first private company to launch its own rocket. It said its 9-meter-tall OS-X rocket successfully blasted off from a base in northwestern China.
The aim of the mission is to collect data for a research project the startup is working on with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a state-owned company.
Founded in 2015, OneSpace is often likened to Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, a comparison that founder and CEO Shu Chang doesn’t shy away from.
“OneSpace’s situation right now is very much like where SpaceX stood in its early years. SpaceX is the first in the US. We’re the first in China,” he told CNNMoney in an interview ahead of the launch.
“This is the first rocket developed and built entirely with homegrown technology,” said Shu, who previously worked for a state-owned aerospace company and an investment firm.
OneSpace is still a long way from matching the feats of SpaceX, which regularly launches big rockets that put satellites in orbit and then return to Earth. OneSpace’s OS-X rocket is designed to carry out tests and research during suborbital flights.
Some of the Chinese company’s claims have been met with skepticism, though.
Xin Zhang, a professor of aerospace engineering at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said he doubted the rocket is entirely OneSpace’s own work.
The company claimed on Thursday that the rocket it launched only took one year to develop and build. Shu had previously suggested it took three years.
“That’s supersonic speed,” according to Zhang, who said it can take companies as long as 10 years.
