Deep Blue Aerospace

Deep Blue Aerospace (Jiangsu Deep Blue Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese commercial launch company founded in November 2016 by Huo Liang. The company operates out of the Jiangsu/Nanjing region in eastern China, with additional rocket design and liquid-engine R&D centers in Beijing's Yizhuang district and Xi'an, plus a propulsion test base in Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province. From its founding, Deep Blue Aerospace set itself apart from most Chinese launch startups by focusing early and explicitly on reusability, aiming to replicate the vertical-landing recovery approach pioneered by SpaceX.

Rather than moving straight to orbital flight, Deep Blue Aerospace built up its reusable-rocket capability through an extensive campaign of vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) test flights using suborbital demonstrator vehicles. In May 2022 the company completed a milestone kilometer-altitude VTVL hop, a first for a Chinese liquid-fueled rocket, and it has continued to fly increasingly ambitious high-altitude recovery tests since, refining landing-leg deployment, engine relight, and guidance software with each attempt.

The company's orbital launch vehicle is Nebula-1 (also known as Xingyun-1), a two-stage, kerosene-liquid-oxygen rocket powered by its Leiting series of engines. Nebula-1 is designed with a recoverable first stage that performs a powered vertical landing after stage separation, targeting the kind of rapid-reuse economics that have transformed the launch market in the United States. The vehicle is sized to deliver roughly two tonnes of payload to low Earth orbit.

Deep Blue Aerospace has raised tens of millions of dollars across multiple funding rounds to support Nebula-1's development and test campaign, including a 2022 round led by CMBC International Holdings. A September 2024 high-altitude VTVL flight test of a Nebula-1 first-stage article completed ten of eleven test objectives before an anomaly during the final landing sequence, underscoring both the progress and the difficulty of reusable rocket development. The company continues working toward Nebula-1's maiden orbital launch, positioning itself alongside LandSpace, Space Pioneer, and iSpace as one of China's leading private launch contenders.