Late Sunday, China carried out two separate launch events. One successfully added to the national Guowang megaconstellation, while the other, a commercial Ceres-1 solid rocket, experienced a failure.
A Long March 12 rocket launched from the Hainan commercial space launch center at 9:41 p.m. Eastern, Nov. 9 (0241 UTC, Nov. 10). According to the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), the launch was successful and carried the 13th batch of satellites for the national Guowang megaconstellation. This was the third launch of the Long March 12, occurring less than a year after its first flight on Nov. 30, 2024, and the second time it carried satellites for Guowang.
The exact number of satellites on board was not disclosed. However, the previous Long March 12 launch carried nine Guowang satellites, suggesting a similar number were added to the constellation. This would bring the total number of operational satellites to 104, although this figure may vary. According to plans the national Guowang project, managed by China SatNet, aims to deploy nearly 13,000 satellites in low Earth orbit as a response to Starlink. The project aims to have 400 satellites in orbit by 2027.
Details about the Guowang satellites remain scarce, leading to speculation about their capabilities. These satellites have been built largely by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), with involvement from the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites and GalaxySpace. It is not clear which organization provided the satellites for this latest launch.
According to SAST, the kerosene-liquid oxygen Long March 12 can transport 12,000 kg to LEO and 6,000 kg to SSO. A reusable version, the 12A, is expected to have a test flight soon.
Following this successful launch, Galactic Energy, a Chinese commercial company, conducted its own launch. A Ceres-1 solid rocket lifted off at 11:02 p.m. Eastern (0402 UTC, Nov. 10) from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Zone. However, Galactic Energy announced that the launch ended in failure. "510 seconds after the fourth stage ignition, the rocket shut down prematurely due to an anomaly, failing to deliver the satellite into orbit. The launch mission was a failure," the company stated.
The Ceres-1 rocket was carrying the Jixing Platform 02A04 satellite and the North China University-1 satellite. This was the 22nd launch for Galactic Energy and its second failure. It remains to be seen how this will affect the planned launch of the larger Ceres-2 solid rocket.
Galactic Energy also recently conducted a hot fire test of the first stage of the Pallas-1 rocket. The Sunday missions were China’s 71st and 72nd orbital launch attempts of 2025, and the second failure.