Experts talk about the first flight of the Suzaku-3 rocket: The gold content is quite high and it is expected to surpass the Falcon 9 within 5 years

Today, the first flight of the Zhuque-3 rocket developed by Blue Arrow Aerospace, China's first commercial aerospace company, was ignited and launched at the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone. This launch completed the mission according to procedures.The second stage of the rocket entered the predetermined orbit, but an abnormality occurred after the first stage of the rocket was ignited in the landing section, and a soft landing at the recovery site was not achieved.

The wreckage landed on the edge of the recovery site, and the recovery test failed. The specific reason is under further investigation.

The Suzaku-3 rocket made its first flight into orbit and unfortunately failed in the first-stage recovery verification. Is this a success or a failure?

According to CCTV Finance, industry experts said that the first flight of a large new model rocket is itself a high-risk system-level experiment.

Although not perfect, this was a very valuable first flight. It verified many key technologies such as the entire process of reusing rockets and the parallel connection of nine aircraft. It also obtained key engineering data under real flight conditions.It has laid an important foundation for subsequent launch services and reliable recovery and reuse of sub-stages.

More importantly, the first flight of Zhuque-3 marked the beginning of my country's reusable rocket missions.

As a reusable launch vehicle, Zhuque-3 focuses on low cost, large transport capacity, and high frequency, and is leading the development of similar types of rockets in China.

It is worth mentioning that in October this year,SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Musk commented that it "may surpass the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket within 5 years."

It is understood that the Zhuque-3 rocket adopts a single-core and two-stage series configuration. The first and second stages have a diameter of 4.5 meters, a fairing diameter of 5.2 meters, a total arrow length of 66.1 meters, a take-off mass of about 560t, and a take-off thrust of 7542kN.

The power system is based on the Tianque series liquid oxygen methane engine independently developed by Blue Arrow Aerospace. The first stage uses nine Tianque 12A engines in parallel; the second stage uses one Tianque 15A vacuum engine.