Ceres-2
Galactic Energy
Galactic Energy's liquid-propellant orbital launch vehicle under development, targeting ~4,000 kg to LEO as a step up from the Ceres-1 solid rocket.
Key figurescomparable across the catalogue
- Payload capacity
- 4,000 kg
Normalised to common units so this product can be compared with others in its category. The supplier's own wording is below.
As published by the supplier
- Propellants
- LOX/Kerosene (liquid)
- Target Payload to LEO
- ~4,000 kg
- Target Payload to SSO
- ~2,000 kg
- Predecessor
- Ceres-1 (solid, 300 kg to SSO, multiple successful flights)
- Company
- Galactic Energy (星河动力), founded 2018, Beijing, China
- Status
- Development
About
Ceres-2 is Galactic Energy’s next-generation orbital launch vehicle, currently under development in China. While Ceres-1 uses solid propellants (a common approach for cost and simplicity), Ceres-2 transitions to liquid propellants — specifically LOX and kerosene — enabling higher specific impulse, throttleability, and better scalability than solid motors.
Galactic Energy (星河动力, Xinghe Dongli) was founded in 2018 in Beijing and became one of China’s most commercially successful private launch companies with Ceres-1’s repeated successful flights. Ceres-1 achieved a payload capacity of approximately 300 kg to SSO and completed multiple commercial launches for Chinese satellite constellation operators including Spacety and Commsat.
Ceres-2 is expected to target approximately 4,000 kg to LEO (or ~2,000 kg to SSO), enabling Galactic Energy to compete for larger satellite constellation launch contracts. The vehicle represents the company’s transition from a proven small-launcher operator to a medium-class launch provider serving the growing Chinese commercial satellite market.
Documentation
No public datasheet yet — request the datasheet / ICD from the supplier.