China on Wednesday became the first country to successfully launch a new methane-powered carrier rocket into space, beating Elon Musk's SpaceX. Chinese private aerospace company LandSpace's Zhuque-2 carrier rocket blasted off at 9 a.m. Beijing Time (6.30?a.m. This was the second flight mission of the Zhuque-2 carrier rocket, after an unsuccessful launch on December 14, last year. The Zhuque-2 is a two-stage liquid-propellant carrier rocket, and is 49.5 metres long rocket with a diameter of 3.35 metres, according to China Space News. It has a carrying capacity of six tonnes for low Earth orbit and four tonnes for SSO.

Source: dna July 12, 2023 22:38 UTC