Huzhou, December 29 (Reuters) – Chinese rocket startup Blue Arrow Aerospace has made no secret of drawing inspiration from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Earlier this month, the Beijing-based company became the first Chinese entity to conduct a test of a reusable rocket. That has alarmed SpaceX, which is now preparing to go public to fund its future projects, just as its larger and more successful U.S. rivals are considering initial public offerings.
Although the test of Blue Arrow Aerospace’s Zhuque 3 rocket ended in failure, its ambitions became second only to SpaceX in the field of reusable rockets, providing new impetus to China’s space industry, which has long been dominated by risk-averse state-owned entities.
“(SpaceX) is able to push products to the edge or even fail, quickly identify limits and iterate,” Suzaku-3 chief designer Dai Zheng told CCTV after the rocket’s first flight.
Dai said he decided to join Blue Arrow Aerospace in 2016 and leave China’s main state-owned rocket developer China Launch Vehicle Technology Institute, in part because of SpaceX’s focus on reusability and his desire to create a Chinese-equivalent rocket.
Blue Arrow Aerospace is committed to providing China with a low-cost launch option similar to SpaceX’s flight-proven reusable rocket Falcon 9, which will play a key role in Beijing’s plan to build a 10,000 satellite constellation over the next few decades.
“Falcon 9 is a successful engineering-proven configuration,” Dong Kai, deputy chief designer of Zhuque 3, said in a podcast interview last week. “After studying it, we realized its rationality. This is learning, not imitation.”
“I think calling (Suzaku-3) the ‘Chinese Falcon 9’ is a very high compliment.”
Its entrepreneurial culture and imitation of SpaceX have triggered a paradigm shift in China’s aerospace industry.
China’s state-led space program has historically been sensitive to launch failures, and SpaceX and other Western companies regularly publicize their launch failures.
But earlier this month, state media reported on China’s first two failed attempts to recover reusable rockets, with the second launch conducted by a state-owned company just three weeks after the first flight of Zhuque 3.
Blue Arrow Aerospace also opened its engine factory floor to Reuters this month, giving foreign media a first look at one of its core assets.
In 2014, the aerospace sector opened up to private funding, spawning a number of start-up companies including Blue Arrow Aerospace. Following this, Beijing is now seeking to help the country’s leading companies access capital markets by making it easier for them to conduct initial public offerings (IPOs).