Orienspace sends 9 satellites into orbit for China's Spacesail Constellation

Orienspace, a leading private rocket maker in China, conducted the fourth flight of its Gravity 1 carrier rocket on Wednesday morning, sending nine satellites into space.

The rocket lifted off at 6 am from a launch service ship off the coast of Shanghai and soon placed the satellites into their preset orbits — eight in the Spacesail Constellation network and one experimental craft.

This was the first time Gravity 1 — now the biggest and most powerful solid-propellant rocket in the world — deployed satellites for Spacesail Constellation, one of the two massive internet networks China is constructing in space.

The mission also set national records in payload weight and orbit altitude for any sea-based launch ever done in China, with a combined payload weight exceeding 3 metric tons and an orbit height of 800 kilometers, according to Orienspace.

With a liftoff weight of 405 metric tons and a liftoff thrust of 600 tons, the rocket is capable of sending payloads weighing up to 6.5 tons into low-Earth orbit or 4.2 tons into a typical sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers, according to the company.