PALLAS-1 Y1 rocket succeeds in maiden flight

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The PALLAS-1 Y1 liquid carrier rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone in northwest China, September 1, 2026. Chen Liangchao/CGTN

The PALLAS-1 Y1 liquid carrier rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone in northwest China, September 1, 2026. Wang Jiangbo/CGTN

The PALLAS-1 Y1 liquid carrier rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone in northwest China, September 1, 2026. Chen Liangchao/CGTN

A new milestone in China's commercial space development. The PALLAS-1 Y1 liquid carrier rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone in northwest China on Tuesday and successfully reached its orbit.

The two-stage configuration rocket has a total length of 52 meters. Its core stage diameter is 3.35 meters, with lift-off mass approximately 283 tonnes and lift-off thrust 350 tonnes. PALLAS-1 is designed to be re-used at least 25 times.

The main propulsion system uses the self-developed CQ-50 pintle-type reusable liquid oxygen/kerosene engines, whose accumulated hot-fire test duration exceeds 23,000 seconds. The rocket's first stage adopts a parallel configuration of seven CQ-50 engines.

The maiden flight has obtained full-vehicle flight data and verified its capabilities. The company Galactic Energy next aims to carry out the first-stage vertical landing and recovery.

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