Aerospace, rocket launch and other projects have always been quite difficult to achieve, requiring a large number of high-end technical personnel and capital investment. Therefore, China's rocket launch technology has long been in the hands of large companies such as aerospace groups, until 2015, due to market demand and government encouragement, private aerospace companies have gradually grown, and among them, Beijing Tianbing Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tianbing Technology) is undoubtedly a very powerful team.
Tianbing Technology was founded on January 2, 2019 and is headquartered in Yizhuang Economic and Technological Development Zone, Beijing. As the first private enterprise in China's aerospace field to carry out the development of a new generation of normal temperature non-toxic HCP rocket engine and HCP carrier rocket, Tianbing Technology has completed the HCP liquid rocket engine principle prototype ignition test, Tianhuo No. 1 liquid rocket engine full system hot test, pulse hot test, Tianhuo No. 2 liquid rocket engine full system hot test, Tianhuo No. 3 liquid engine ignition device hot test, Tianlong No. 1 liquid carrier rocket overall scheme demonstration and stand-alone selection. In the future, it will have the ability to provide fast, low-cost and reliable launch services for satellite users, and provide breakthrough increments for China's spaceflight.
Talking about the original intention of entrepreneurship, Luo Yi, co-founder of Tianbing Technology, said that the development of the times and the needs of the market are the catalyst for the development of commercial aerospace enterprises. Luo Yi studied at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and worked in the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in the early days, and years of industry accumulation made him and other start-ups keenly aware that with the implementation of satellite Internet technology in China's State Grid Program, the launch demand for communication satellites and remote sensing satellites will grow geometrically, which gives commercial launch vehicle companies great room for development. At the same time, in 2019, China promulgated the "Notice on Promoting the Standardized and Orderly Development of Commercial Launch Vehicles", which further guaranteed the development environment of commercial space enterprises.
Unlike artificial intelligence and other fields, China's commercial aerospace industry has just started, and what R&D personnel need to solve is the problem of commercial launch vehicles from scratch, which has formed a very high industry barrier.
Tianbing Technology can be established more than a year to complete the development of multi-model rocket engine tasks, a strong team of its success of the fundamental, Tianbing Technology currently has more than 30 employees, core technical personnel from China Aerospace Science and Technology Group, China Aerospace Science and Industry Group and other national military groups, of which the chief designer and above accounted for 42%, doctoral and above accounted for 32%, in the past a total of hundreds of national defense patents and hundreds of academic achievements, but also has a lot of engineering experience.
From the product technical route, the current commercial rockets are mainly divided into solid launch vehicles and liquid launch vehicles, the market price of solid fuel propellants is more expensive and solid fuel rockets are not easy to recover, limiting the development prospects of this technical route.
In the field of liquid propellants, compared with the propellant system composed of liquid oxygen kerosene and liquid oxygen methane, the HCP propellant developed by Tianbing Technology is not only green and non-toxic, high energy density, but also overcomes the shortcomings of liquid oxygen kerosene and liquid oxygen methane propellant system must be stored at ultra-low temperature.
Chuangbang learned from the Tianbing technology team that HCP propellants are very new members of the propellant family, and it is difficult to develop them, and there are very few companies that develop such propellants in China. At the same time, due to the optimization of the overall design scheme of the rocket, the commercial launch vehicle of Tianbing Technology has reduced a large number of complex components, which will greatly improve the carrying capacity of the same take-off weight carrier rocket, and under the same capacity conditions, its launch cost will be significantly lower than that of the same type of liquid launch vehicle on the market, which will bring it a great market advantage.
In addition, Tianbing Technology is also laying out rocket recovery technology, it is understood that tianbing technology's rocket engine thrust mediation range is very large, and the ability to repeat ignition and deep pushing has also laid a solid foundation for the future recovery and reuse of this type of engine and carrier rocket.
It is understood that Tianbing Technology will complete the full-system hot test of the Tianhuo-3 engine this year, and plans to carry out the first flight mission of the Tianlong-1 liquid carrier rocket at the end of 2021.
In terms of financing, Tianbing Technology completed a pre-A round of financing of more than 100 million yuan in March 2020, led by Zhejiang University Lianchuang, followed by Innova Angel and Eagle Fund, and the financing funds will be mainly used to complete the whole system hot test of the Tianhuo series engine, the development and production of the Tianlong series carrier rocket and the expansion and construction of the talent team, and there is still a new round of financing plans this year.
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