China Completes First Commercial Suborbital Capsule Recovery
The Chinese commercial space company, CAS Space, has successfully completed the first flight and recovery of its suborbital capsule, Lihong-1, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Monday afternoon, January 12, 2025. Lihong-1 had reached a maximum altitude of about 120 kilometers and skimmed the edge of space.
The suborbital trajectory allowed the vehicle to briefly cross the Kármán line, providing minutes of microgravity before re-entering the atmosphere, though it did not achieve Earth orbit like a normal satellite.
The mission carried a scaled-down version of a crewed spacecraft, allowing experimental payloads to be exposed to microgravity and radiation before being safely returned for analysis. On board were a microgravity-based laser additive manufacturing experiment to test how metals behave during 3D-printing in space, as well as rose seeds subjected to space radiation for mutagenesis research.
Scientists will study the returned samples to assess the effects of space conditions. China's commercial space sector is at a critical transition phase from policy incubation to industrial-scale expansion.
China submitted its largest-ever International Telecommunication Union (ITU) filing in December 2025, applying for frequency and orbital resources for 203,000 additional satellites. This filing covers 14 satellite constellations, including those in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO).
Duration: 1 minute, 23 seconds
Release Date: Jan. 14, 2026
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