Galactic Energy



Galactic Energy is a Chinese private space launch enterprise flying the Ceres-1   and developing the Pallas-1 orbital rockets. The company's long-term objective is to mine asteroids for rare metals and minerals.

History
Galactic Energy successfully conducted its first launch in November 2020 with a Ceres-1 rocket. Galactic Energy became the second private company in China to put a satellite in orbit successfully (after i-Space) and the fourth to attempt an orbital launch (after Landspace, OneSpace, and i-Space).

On 6 December 2021, Galactic Energy launched its second Ceres-1 rocket, becoming the first Chinese private firm to reach orbit twice. In January 2022, the company raised $200 million for reusable launch vehicle development.

Ceres-1
Ceres-1 is a four-stage rocket, the first three stages use solid-propellant rocket motors and the final stage uses a hydrazine propulsion system. It is about 19 m tall and 1.4 m in diameter. It can deliver 400 kg to low Earth orbit or 300 kg to 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit.

The first launch of Ceres-1 took place at 7 November 2020, successfully placing the Tianqi 11 (also transcribed Tiange, also known as TQ 11, and Scorpio 1, COSPAR 2020-080A) satellite in orbit. The satellite's mass was about 50 kg and its purpose was to function as an experimental satellite offering Internet of things (IoT) communications.

On 5 September 2023 the sea-launched version of the launch vehicle, designated Ceres-1S, made its debut successfully sending to orbit four Tianqi satellites. The launch took place from the DeFu 15002 converted barge (previously used also for launching the Long March 11 launch vehicle) off the coast of Haiyang.

Pallas-1
The Pallas-1 is a two-stage medium-lift orbital launch vehicle currently in development, with its inaugural flight anticipated in the third quarter of 2024. The first stage will have legs and grid fins to allow recovery by vertical landing (much like the SpaceX Falcon 9). The first stage of Pallas-1 uses seven “CQ-50” liquid oxygen/kerosene engines, with a lift-off mass of 283 tons and a maximum payload capacity to low Earth orbit (LEO) of 8 tons. Using three Pallas-1 booster cores as its first stage, the rocket will be capable of putting a 17.5-tonne payload into low Earth orbit (LEO).

Marketplace
Galactic Space is in competition with several other Chinese space rocket startups, being LandSpace, LinkSpace, ExPace, i-Space, OneSpace and Deep Blue Aerospace.