CAS Space plans to conduct the debut flight of its Lihong 2 reusable spacecraft in the first quarter of 2027, aiming to return from an altitude of about 100 kilometers and land safely on the ground. As China Daily reported, the commercial space venture incubated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences has completed design work on the 18-meter-long vehicle, positioning it to test space medicines and intelligent robots in microgravity.
Ground Tests and Propulsion Architecture for Lihong 2
Engineering teams have finished wind tunnel evaluations for both the payload module and the booster rocket, alongside propellant retention checks. Intensive engine hot-fire tests and captive carry trials remain active at this stage of development. The spacecraft features a liftoff weight of roughly 60 metric tons and a 3.35-meter diameter. Its booster rocket utilizes three self-developed 30-ton-class Liqing 1 engines propelled by liquid oxygen and kerosene.
“The vehicle will serve as a verification platform for major rocket recovery and reuse technologies as well as a microgravity experiment platform,” said Wang Yingcheng, a senior spacecraft researcher and executive vice-president of CAS Space Frontier Labs in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. “The 100-km recovery test will help us verify designs for multiple restarts and thrust modulation of rocket engines, propellant management, navigation, guidance and landing control.”
That data will directly inform the reusable variant of the Kinetica 2 rocket model. The Lihong 2 architecture is designed to carry at least 3 tons of payload or up to seven passengers per flight. The Karman Line sits at an altitude of about 100 km, marking the internationally recognized boundary of outer space that the vehicle intends to cross and verify.
Collaborative Pharmaceutical Payloads and Space Manufacturing Markets
Beyond basic rocket recovery, the hardware targets commercial in-space utilization. CAS Space previously partnered with the Guangzhou Laboratory to develop space pharmaceutical payloads for the upcoming flight. The collaboration focuses on protein and small-molecule drug crystallization experiments, alongside early testing of space pharmaceutical hardware.
Modern biomedical research faces acute bottlenecks in crystal formation and particle control. Xu Qiang, a lead researcher at the Guangzhou Laboratory, noted that microgravity helps specific proteins form higher-quality structures while enabling cells to assemble into three-dimensional aggregates for disease modeling. Fan Na, vice president of CAS Space, pointed out that the 100-kilometer to 200-kilometer near-space band offers an ideal testing ground for biomedical manufacturing.
Commercial projections for this sector show rapid expansion. A Future Market Insights report released in May valued the global in-space manufacturing market at around $6.3 billion, projecting growth to $46.8 billion by 2036 at a compound annual growth rate as high as 20 percent. Meanwhile, broader macroeconomic estimates from the World Economic Forum place the total space economy at 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars by 2035.
Long-Duration In-Orbit Plans and Subsequent Hardware
Following the 2027 validation of Lihong 2, CAS Space has already initiated research and development on the Lihong 3 spacecraft. This model targets long-duration in-orbit scientific experiments and manufacturing tasks, providing a microgravity environment for up to one year for at least 300 kilograms of payload. Its debut flight and in-orbit verification are scheduled for 2028.
The immediate operational window rests on the successful execution of the Q1 2027 debut flight. Engineers will rely on the suborbital telemetry to validate guidance and landing systems before transitioning those software control loops and hardware configurations to larger commercial launch vehicles.
