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Kinetica-2 rocket puts 18 Qianfan internet satellites into orbit
千帆18颗卫星入轨
A rocket built by the commercial firm CAS Space carried 18 satellites for Qianfan, a Shanghai-based satellite broadband network, and released them all at once from a single stack.
In short
At 8.15 am Beijing time on 3 November 2026, a Kinetica-2 (Lijian-2) rocket built by CAS Space lifted off from the Dongfeng commercial space zone in north-west China and placed 18 Qianfan (Spacesail) internet satellites into a near-polar orbit about 800 km up. It was the rocket’s second flight and lifted the constellation to 274 satellites in orbit.
What happened
A Kinetica-2 rocket, known in Chinese as Lijian-2, lifted off at 8.15 am Beijing time on Tuesday 3 November from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone in north-west China, Xinhua reported. Its payload was 18 satellites of the Qianfan constellation, also called Spacesail, and all reached their planned orbit.
21 Finance reported that the satellites, designated Qianfan polar-orbit group 21, were placed in a near-polar orbit about 800 km above the Earth. The launch raised the number of Qianfan satellites in orbit from 256 to 274. It was the first time Kinetica-2 had been used to deploy a large satellite internet constellation.[1][2][3]
The rocket and its maker
Kinetica-2 is a liquid-fuelled rocket developed by CAS Space (中科宇航), a Chinese commercial launch company. The company says it is China’s first rocket built with a ‘universal booster core’ layout and can carry up to 12 tonnes to a 200 km low Earth orbit, or 8 tonnes to a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit. It stands 53 metres tall and burns kerosene and liquid oxygen.
The rocket first flew on 30 March 2026, carrying the prototype Qingzhou cargo spacecraft. This was its second flight and the 18th launch of CAS Space’s Kinetica (Lijian) family, which has now put one spacecraft and 139 satellites into orbit for nearly 40 customers, according to the company. 21 Finance reported that production time has been halved and launch preparation now takes under 15 days.[2][3][4][5]
Throwing ‘18 hammers at once’
Satellites are usually unlocked and pushed away from a rocket one after another. On this flight, the 18 satellites were stacked together and freed in a single release, using a new multi-satellite separation device CAS Space helped to develop. Deputy chief designer Zhang Yanrui compared the old method to throwing 18 shot puts one by one, and the new one to throwing 18 hammers at the same time.
According to Science and Technology Daily, as carried by The Paper, the device uses fewer mechanisms and less weight. The engineering challenge was to hold the satellites firmly during launch, without over-constraining them, and then to let them go cleanly without them knocking into each other.[3]
What Qianfan is
Qianfan, meaning ‘a thousand sails’, is a low Earth orbit broadband constellation run by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (上海垣信卫星科技), a company in Shanghai. In July 2026 the company told The Paper it aimed to have 324 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026, and that tests had reached download speeds of 500 Mbps with about 50 milliseconds of delay.
The company also said it had begun work in more than ten countries, including building ground stations in South America and South-east Asia, and that in June 2026 it made a voice and video call through a test satellite using an ordinary, unmodified 5G phone. Lijian-2’s chief designer, Yang Haoliang, said China’s satellite internet is entering a period of concentrated deployment, and the rocket is due to fly several more internet missions in 2027.[2][6]
Sources
- Voice of Nigeria, citing Xinhua: China launches 18 satellites into space (3 November 2026) · accessed 4 Nov 2026
- 21 Finance (21财经), Kinetica-2 takes on its first constellation mission; Qianfan reaches 274 in orbit (3 November 2026, in Chinese) · accessed 4 Nov 2026
- The Paper (澎湃新闻), from Science and Technology Daily: launch success, like ‘throwing 18 hammers at once’ (3 November 2026, in Chinese) · accessed 4 Nov 2026
- 21 Finance (21财经), Kinetica-2 Y2 launch succeeds, 18 satellites into orbit (3 November 2026, in Chinese) · accessed 4 Nov 2026
- Wikipedia, Kinetica 2 · accessed 4 Nov 2026
- The Paper (澎湃新闻) via Tencent News, Qianfan aims for 324 satellites in orbit this year (10 July 2026, in Chinese) · accessed 4 Nov 2026
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