I have to admit that today's US space industry is colorful, and many excellent private space companies have emerged.
SpaceX's recyclable rockets, dragon ships, starships, Mountain Company's mini space shuttle, and Blue Origin's suborbital spacecraft can be described as a hundred flowers.
Many people are lamenting, why is there no Chinese Musk?
Why do domestic Internet companies only sell vegetables to deliver meals, and compete with vegetable farmers for rice bowls?
As everyone knows, we also have a large number of excellent private aerospace companies, but they are relatively low-key.
Of course, the technical level is also a little worse than SpaceX, so it is not very famous.
But these companies are also catching up, and there is a great momentum to surpass SpaceX, and Deep Blue Aerospace in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, is such an excellent private space company.
Recently, the "Nebula" M1 test rocket independently developed by the company successfully completed the first vertical take-off and recovery test of the kilometer stage of liquid rocket in China.
What level the nebula is equivalent to, it is difficult to describe in technical terms, let's make an analogy.
The Nebula M1 is roughly equivalent to Musk's Grasshopper rocket, which is the cradle and mother of SpaceX's most successful Falcon 9 rocket.
That said, the current Deep Blue Space Company has grown to the level of SpaceX in 2013.
Isn't it a little frustrating? Ten years later than anyone else?
However, our nebulaes evolve and iterate faster than SpaceX.
The nebula's three test flights, ranging in altitude from 10 meters to 100 meters to 1,000 meters, took less than 10 months.
Grasshoppers went through 8 test flights before and after successfully achieving this.
That is to say, the Yankees tried eight times to succeed, and we only needed three times.
Now the nebula has also achieved lateral movement at the same time, and finally landed steadily less than 0.5 meters from the bullseye.
Of course, the current nebula rocket still has shortcomings, such as the landing action is relatively blunt, and finally there is no deceleration and adjustment process.
Secondly, Nebula's engine is still a long way from the Grasshopper's Merlin engine, not to mention the current "Raptor".
The current load of the nebula is only one or two tons, and it is not yet able to achieve the point of more than one arrow.
Even so, it is not easy for a private enterprise to do this, at least it has made a good start for the domestic private aerospace industry.
Their efforts in the field of recyclable rockets are worthy of everyone's admiration!
At present, the company is accelerating the progress of scientific research and striving to catch up with SpaceX as soon as possible.
After all, there are so many orbits in the sky, and when Musk has occupied the space orbit, other countries will become a luxury if they want to launch rockets.
At present, in addition to deep blue aerospace, there are many domestic enterprises and national teams that are accelerating in this field.
For example, The Star Glory developed by Linker Aerospace is also developing a recyclable and reusable rocket, and their Hyperbola 3 rocket uses a liquid oxygen methane engine, which is scheduled to be launched in 2024 and can be reused 20 times.
The "Peacock" test vehicle, Long March 8R, Long March 6X, New 921 and Long March 9 developed by the China Space Administration are also moving forward on the road of reuse and recycling.
China has the advantage of scale, once the technology is successful, it can quickly reduce manufacturing costs and seize the market.
I believe that within five years, There will be China's Musk to lead China's aerospace into the world's top level.
Tribute to the R&D team of Nebula Rocket!