China's Gravity-1: The Game-Changer in Space Warfare!

Video from the channel Treasure Of World 🌎 about Gravity-1, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 28:05. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A narrated documentary about the Gravity-1, the solid-fuel launcher of Chinese private company OrienSpace, prompted by its second flight on 11 October 2025 from a floating platform in the Yellow Sea. Besides describing the rocket and the mission, it devotes much of its runtime to the importance of satellites in everyday life, the falling cost of access to space, and the strategic implications of being able to launch quickly.

OrienSpace was founded in 2020 by engineers from China's state rocket programs, such as the Long March family, combining that experience with the agility and funding of a start-up. According to the video, in August 2025 it closed a funding round earmarked, among other things, for its next rocket, the Gravity-2, a reusable liquid-fuel vehicle. The narration frames the launch within the opening of China's space sector to private initiative, backed by state support for infrastructure such as the Haiyang spaceport, and at a time when space is regarded as another military domain, following the experience of the war in Ukraine.

The Gravity-1 is 30 m tall and has a three-stage core with four strap-on boosters. Fired together, they produce 600 t of thrust to lift a total mass of 405 t. It can place 6,500 kg into low Earth orbit, and the video presents the strap-on booster configuration as unprecedented among Chinese private companies. On the second flight it carried three satellites. The first, Jilin-1 Wideband 02B07, is a high-resolution observation satellite built by Chang Guang Satellite Technology that can distinguish half-metre objects across a 150-km-wide swath. The other two are experimental communications and navigation satellites developed by Geespace, part of the same group that makes Geely cars. Because it uses solid propellant and does not need to load cryogenic fuels, and because it launches from a mobile sea platform that can be positioned according to the desired orbit and away from populated areas, OrienSpace claims it could prepare an emergency launch within 24 hours.