China's first commercial spaceport has completed its maiden launch mission

China's Hainan Commercial Space Launch site has successfully launched a Long March-12 carrier rocket, the first time the country's first commercial space launch site has completed a launch mission.

China News Service and 21st Century Economic Network reported that the Long March 12 carrier rocket on Saturday (November 30) evening at the Hainan Commercial Space Launch site, the second station of the satellite Internet technology test satellite and technology test satellite 03 into the scheduled orbit.

Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site, located in the eastern suburb of Wenchang City, Hainan Province, is China's first commercial space launch site. The whole project was invested, constructed, operated and managed by Hainan International Commercial Space Launch Co., LTD., which lasted 878 days from the start of construction in July 2022 to the first launch.

Liu Chong, mayor of Wenchang and director of the Wenchang International Space City Administration Bureau, also said at a press conference Saturday night that Wenchang is currently building a star and arrow industrial park and speeding up the construction of satellite gigafacorts.

At present, Hainan commercial Space launch site has two launch stations. Among them, the No. 1 station was completed at the end of last year, which is a special launch station for the Long March 8 carrier rocket; Station 2, completed in June this year, is a general purpose station that can meet the launch needs of different rockets.

The 21st Century Economic Network quoted a commercial space practitioner as saying that before the Hainan commercial space launch site was put into use, China had very few station resources for commercial space use.

The industry pointed out that China's existing Jiuquan, Taiyuan, Wenchang, Xichang four launch sites, a total of more than 10 launch stations, open to commercial space is mainly Jiuquan and Xichang. Previously, Jiuquan has also established some commercial stations, but subject to geographical conditions, many large rockets are difficult to transport in the past, and Hainan commercial space launch site will become an important support to meet China's commercial space launch needs in the future.

China seeks to become a space power, but lags behind in commercial rocket launches. SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, conducted about 100 launches last year, eight times as many as all private Chinese start-ups combined.