China has been turning space milestones into a declaration of intent for more than two decades. First it was Yang Liwei aboard Shenzhou-5, in 2003, when the country became the third in the world to send humans to space with its own technology. Then came the far side of the Moon, the Chang’e 6 samples and a space station completed in approximately 20 months. What we have seen now points to another different phase: it is not enough to go further, we must also manufacture faster and with an industrial cadence.
This scale change now has its own name: CAS Space. Chinese private aerospace company has completed in Shaoxing, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, a facility it presents as a “super factory” for its Kinetica-2 liquid propellant rocket. The facility has been designed to reach a capacity of 12 rockets per year when it reaches full production. China in Space adds that the plant is designed to increase production of a launcher whose first flight took place on March 30.
The key is that we are not just talking about an industrial warehouse to assemble parts at the end of the process. This is an installation that integrates the final assembly and tests with the manufacture of essential rocket components, including propellant tanks, pipes and valves, interstage sections and ducts. So it is expected that many of the Kinetica-2 parts will be produced there, including the engine sections, although not the engines. The difference is important: concentrating production and verification in the same space brings the rocket closer to a more industrial logic, less dependent on dispersed processes.
China wants to turn its launches into an industrial routine
CAS Space also wants to change the way those rockets move through the factory. Li Qinfeng, deputy design director of Kinetica-2, explained to Global Times that the facility adopts a pulse-based final assembly and testing line, intended to allow parallel assembly of multiple rockets. In the design, the company talks about a standardized modular architecture, common components and prefabrication of core stages. The idea, according to Li, is to shorten order response cycles and gain flexibility in launches.
It is advisable, in any case, to separate the finished factory from the factory already operating at full capacity. CAS Space plans to dedicate the first two years of operation to optimizing its processes to improve quality and efficiency. The company hopes to achieve annual capacity of 12 rockets within three to five years, not immediately. Although the announcement tells us that it is officially underway, we will have to wait a while until we see these facilities in full productive capacity.
New CAS Space facilities
He Kinetica-2 It’s not a new rocket. Its first flight was carried out on March 30, 2026 and put into orbit the New March 01 technology demonstration satellite, the New March 02, described as an experimental cargo ship, and the TS 01 educational satellite. In addition, the company wants to carry out about ten flights before the end of 2028. This schedule will serve to test reuse technologies gradually, from aerodynamic control in descent to the in-flight restart of a first stage engine and the first attempts. landing.
Kinetica-2 on its maiden flight
According to Securities Times, cited by Global Times, China’s space launches could exceed 100 this year, with more than 60 commercial missions. Within that volume, private rockets would assume more than 30 releasesaccording to that same forecast, a figure that helps understand the urgency to move to more repeatable processes. If this schedule materializes, the challenge will no longer be just having good launchers, but also having a production network capable of feeding them without turning each mission into an exception.
The leap, therefore, is not only in building one more facility. It is about trying to stop launches depending on an exceptional cadence and start relying on more repeatable processes. CAS Space has several years of adjustment ahead before reaching its promised capability, and Kinetica-2 still needs to demonstrate much more in flight. But the bet is already on the table: if China wants to exceed one hundred launches per year and give more weight to its private operators, it needs facilities capable of keeping up with that pace.
Images | CAS Space
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