OS-X Suborbital Sounding Rocket

The OS-X series is OneSpace’s family of solid-propellant suborbital sounding rockets. The first vehicle in the series, OS-X0, flew successfully in May 2018, becoming China’s first privately developed commercial suborbital rocket to reach flight. The roughly 9-meter OS-X0 reached an altitude near 40 km on its debut flight. Later variants extended the program’s capability: OS-X1 was ground-tested in December 2017 and flew in September 2018, while the larger OS-X6B, at about 9.4 meters, reached roughly 300 km altitude on its maiden flight in February 2021. The OS-X program has been used by OneSpace to validate solid rocket motor, guidance and recovery technologies later applied to the orbital OS-M launch vehicle, and is associated with the company’s in-house product name Hongming (鸿鸣).