[THE VERGE] Watch This Satellite Footage of a Rocket Launching from the Gobi Desert

2018-09-12 | MEDIA REPORTS    Browsing Times : 2859

Screenshot of satellite footage of the OneSpace OS-X1 suborbital rocket launch Image: Dafeng Cao (screengrab)


Over the weekend, China’s OneSpace startup launched a rocket from the Gobi Desert, and the entire thing was captured by a satellite orbiting 332 miles above Earth.


OneSpace was testing the solid-fueled booster of its OS-X1 rocket, according to the GB Times. The rocket took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre and eventually reached a suborbital altitude of 21.7 miles. The launch was filmed by China’s Jilin-1 satellite and then posted to Sina Weibo (“China’s Twitter”) and Twitter. (Similarly, last year, a satellite caught sight of a Soyuz launch in Kazakhstan.)


OneSpace is one of China’s few private spaceflight companies in an industry dominated by the government’s space agency. OneSpace CEO Shu Chang told state-run news outletChina Daily that he wants the company to be “one of the biggest small-satellite launchers in the world” and that it plans to perform 10 launches in 2019.


Back in May, OneSpace became the first private Chinese space company to launch a rocket. However, both of its tests have been suborbital. It plans to launch its first orbital flight later this year.