Economic Observer reporter Zheng Chenye

On April 3rd, Jiangsu Tianbing Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tianbing Technology") independently developed the Tianlong-3 Yao-1 carrier rocket and carried out its maiden flight mission at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

According to information disclosed by Tianbing Technology, Tianlong-3 is currently the largest liquid rocket in China's commercial space transportation capacity, with a low Earth orbit carrying capacity of 17 to 22 tons, benchmarking SpaceX's Falcon 9 and also the company's core product.

From the preparation before launch, this well-known private rocket company is quite confident in the first flight results. For example, before the launch, Tianbing Technology organized a live viewing event. According to a reporter from the Economic Observer, it is not common to arrange on-site ceremonies for rocket maiden flights. Usually, only mature rocket models that have flown multiple times and have a high degree of certainty will do so.

According to the invitation letter obtained by the reporter, Tianbing Technology not only arranged on-site observation on the day of launch, but also arranged a celebration banquet and fireworks display after launch. Facing the news media, Tianbing Technology has also prepared a press release for the successful maiden flight, with the title emphasizing "Large Capacity Breaks Commercial Use".

At 12:17 on April 3rd, the Tianlong III Yaoyi ignited and took off from Jiuquan. But shortly after takeoff, the rocket experienced an anomaly in the air, with a cloud of smoke rising from its wake. The on-site video obtained by the reporter shows that Tianlong-3 finally disintegrated in mid air.

In the afternoon of the same day, Tianbing Technology released a statement on the official official account stating that the rocket flight was abnormal and the first flight test mission failed. The specific reasons are being further analyzed and investigated, and the zeroing procedure has been started. The so-called "zeroing" is a fault handling mechanism that has been used in China's aerospace system for many years. It requires a thorough investigation of the reasons for each failure from both technical and management perspectives, the development of improvement measures, and verification of effectiveness before proceeding to the next launch.

2026 marks the 7th year of the establishment of Tianbing Technology. The founder of this rocket "unicorn", Kang Yonglai, worked at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology for nearly 20 years and led the overall demonstration and design of models such as the Long March 11. Over the past seven years, Tianbing Technology has completed more than ten rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing scale of over 6 billion yuan and a latest valuation of approximately 22.5 billion yuan. As of March 2026, Tianbing Technology's valuation ranks first among domestic private rocket companies.

In the commercial aerospace field, Tianbing Technology has always been regarded as one of the most promising private enterprises to take the lead in the development, mass launch, and listing of high-capacity liquid rockets. But as of the day of the maiden flight of Tianlong-3, Tianbing Technology still does not have a large capacity liquid rocket that has been flight validated. The only publicly available successful launch record is Tianlong-2- a medium-sized rocket that has not flown since its maiden flight in 2023.

On October 17, 2025, Tianbing Technology completed the IPO counseling filing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board with the Jiangsu Securities Regulatory Bureau, and the counseling agency was CITIC Securities.

Seven Years

In early 2019, veteran of the rocket industry Kang Yonglai founded Tianbing Technology. This company didn't start with the familiar liquid oxygen kerosene rocket that the outside world is now familiar with.

The technology route of liquid oxygen and kerosene is currently the mainstream choice for high-capacity rockets at home and abroad. Liquid oxygen is used as the oxidizer, kerosene as the fuel, with high thrust and mature supply chain. It can send payloads of tens or even tens of tons into orbit. The fuel used for SpaceX's Falcon 9 is liquid oxygen kerosene.

A reporter from the Economic Observer reviewed the information publicly disclosed by the official Tianbing Technology since its establishment in 2019 and found that Tianbing Technology initially developed the HCP liquid rocket engine, which is a type of liquid rocket propellant. Tianbing Technology called this engine "a new generation of normal temperature non-toxic HCP rocket engine" in the official account article.

Unlike liquid oxygen kerosene engines, the propellant of HCP engines can be stored at room temperature and is easy to operate, but the upper limit of thrust is limited, making it suitable for small and medium-sized rockets. Between 2019 and 2020, all Tianhuo-1, Tianhuo-2, and Tianhuo-3 engines developed by Tianbing Technology were HCP models, and the planned Tianlong-1 carrier rocket also followed the HCP route.

At that time, the commercial aerospace industry was at its peak, with capital intensive inflows. The financing pace of Tianbing Technology was also very fast: in the first year of its establishment in 2019, it completed three rounds of financing: Angel Round, Angel+Round, and Pre-A Round, obtaining hundreds of millions of yuan; In 2020, another round A and round A+financing will be completed, of which round A+will be led by Guoke Investment, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. According to the document issued on the official account of Tianbing Technology, the A+round completed by the end of 2020 is the third billion yuan financing of the company that year.

Tianbing Technology has been established for less than two years and has completed five rounds of financing. Early investors also gave high praise to Tianbing Technology. For example, Zhejiang University Lianchuang, the leading investor in the Pre-A round, stated that Tianbing Technology "targets the general launch market by reducing arrow costs through HCP technology.

At the end of 2020, the Tianbing Technology hundred ton HCP engine test bench was completed, and the Tianhuo No. 3 30 ton HCP engine completed full system hot testing. Everything seems to be rapidly advancing in the direction of HCP.

But the direction of the industry is changing. In 2020, satellite Internet will be included in the new national infrastructure. In April 2021, China Satellite Network Group was established, and the large-scale networking of low orbit satellite constellations has shifted from planning to practical needs. An investor who has long been interested in the commercial aerospace industry told Economic Observer reporters that constellation networking requires a large rocket that can launch dozens of satellites with a single capacity of over 10 tons, and the thrust ceiling of HCP engines determines that it cannot support this scale.

In this context, the direction of rocket development has shifted from "as long as it can fly" to "whoever can transport more and transport cheaper", with liquid oxygen kerosene and liquid oxygen methane becoming the main focus of market pursuit.

The choice of Tianbing Technology can only follow the market. In the first half of 2021, Tianbing Technology mentioned on its official account a new engine - Tianhao -11, a 30 ton liquid oxygen kerosene closed cycle engine, and more than 80% of its components were made by 3D printing.

From publicly available information, this engine has a completely different technological roadmap from the previous HCP series. After the appearance of Tianhuo-11, the three words HCP no longer appeared in the public materials of Tianbing Technology.

Changing lanes in technology means putting all previous product plans on hold. Around the HCP route, Tianbing Technology had previously planned the Tianlong-1 carrier rocket, Tiansu-1 recovery test rocket, and the supporting Tianhuo series HCP rocket engine. Among them, the Tissot 1 completed its final assembly in 2020. However, according to the document records of Tianbing Science and Technology official account, the flight test time of these three products has been postponed again and again. In 2020, Tianlong I was said to be "ready for its first flight in 2021", in April 2021, it was said that "Tianlong liquid carrier rocket will be launched into orbit for the first time by the end of 2021", and in June 2021, it was said that "Tiansuo I will conduct repeated use demonstration flight tests this year".

However, the reporter of the Economic Observer combed all the papers published on the official account of Tianbing Science and Technology since 2019, and failed to find the open flight test records of Tianlong 1 and Tiansuo 1 rockets.

Although the technological route has shifted from HCP to liquid oxygen kerosene, the financing pace of Tianbing Technology has not slowed down, and the construction of industrial bases is also advancing synchronously. In April 2021, Tianbing Technology laid the foundation for its intelligent manufacturing base in Zhangjiagang, with a total investment of 4 billion yuan, covering an area of 200 acres, and planning to produce 30 rockets and 300 engines annually. On February 8, 2022, Tianbing Technology announced on the official account that it had completed the round B financing, led by CICC Capital, followed by CCB International, CSCI Investment, Hongfu Assets, etc.

This is the 8th round of financing for Tianbing Technology since its establishment 3 years ago, with a total of nearly 2 billion yuan raised. Yi Qiyun, Managing Director of CICC Capital, praised Tianbing Technology at that time, saying, "I am fortunate to have found the most trustworthy team in China's commercial rocket comprehensive technology strength.

After the B-round financing, Tianbing Technology began to accelerate its development on the liquid oxygen kerosene route, and its first publicly unveiled liquid oxygen kerosene rocket was called Tianlong-2. In 2022, this rocket gradually completed various ground tests: two-stage full system swing hot test, three-stage power system hot test, first stage power system test, and fairing separation.

In November of the same year, the power core of Tianlong 3, the 110 ton Tianhuo 12 engine, also completed its first full system hot test.

At the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2022, Tianbing Technology officially released its complete product line for the first time, including the medium-sized rocket Tianlong-2, which is already in the process of making its maiden flight, the large-scale rocket Tianlong-3, the 110 ton Tianhuo-12 engine that is supporting Tianlong-3, and the more long-term planned Tianlong-3 heavy rocket and spaceplane.

On April 2, 2023, Tianlong-2 successfully made its maiden flight in Jiuquan, sending a satellite into a 500 kilometer sun synchronous orbit with a globally leading accuracy.

Tianlong-2 is a three-stage liquid rocket with a diameter of 3.35 meters, a length of 32.8 meters, and a takeoff mass of 153 tons. It uses liquid oxygen and coal based aerospace kerosene as propellants. According to the introduction of the official account of Tianbing Science and Technology, the coal based space kerosene used in Tianlong II is produced from low-grade coal through hydrogenation technology. It has low sulfur content, is not easy to deposit carbon, and is cheaper than traditional petroleum based space kerosene.

According to Tianbing Technology, Tianlong-2 is the world's first rocket to fly using coal based aerospace kerosene. Its maiden flight validated several technologies that were first applied domestically, including 3D printed closed-loop engines for launch, the ability to launch without relying on a fixed launch station (a hardened cement field), the reuse of a first stage rocket body (the first stage rocket body used for the maiden flight had undergone full system testing and was directly launched after maintenance), and active controlled deorbiting of the final stage.

The successful maiden flight of Tianlong-2 is a shining moment for Tianbing Technology. Before and after its maiden flight, Tianbing Technology's financing accelerated further: from February to October 2023, it completed four rounds of financing intensively from Pre-C to C+round, with Series C led by Boyu Investment and Series C led by CITIC Construction Investment, with a valuation exceeding 15 billion yuan.

But the maiden flight of Tianlong-2 is also the only publicly recorded successful launch by Tianbing Technology so far. In addition, after sorting out the public information, the reporter of the Economic Observer also noticed that although Tianbing Technology said in the official account after the successful first flight of Tianlong II that Tianlong II "has completed the signing of ten market orders", since the first flight of Tianlong II, there is no record of the subsequent launch of this rocket in the public information.

Besides Tianlong-2, Tianbing Technology currently does not have any other rocket models that can perform commercial launches, as all resources of this "unicorn" have shifted to Tianlong-3. It is worth mentioning that in the product planning of Tianbing Technology, in addition to Tianlong-3, there are also Tianlong-3 Heavy (with a low Earth orbit capacity of about 68 tons) and a manned rocket (planned to launch in 2028). However, the first flight of Tianlong III itself has not yet been successful, and these long-term plans only exist in the PPT and air show booth for the time being.

Compared to Tianlong-2, Tianlong-3 is a much larger rocket - with a body diameter of 3.8 meters, a total length of 72 meters, a takeoff weight of about 600 tons, and a first stage equipped with 9 Tianhuo-12 engines. The Tianhuo Twelve engine has a single ground thrust of 110 tons, and approximately 92% of its components are manufactured through integrated metal 3D printing.

Tianlong-3 also adopts liquid nitrogen pressurization technology, replaces aerospace grade components with industrial grade components (ensuring reliability through redundant design), and uses a flameless inter stage separation device. Tianbing Technology stated that this rocket integrates over 50 innovative technologies, of which over 30 are being applied for the first time.

The development of the Tianlong-3 rocket started in March 2022, and since its official release at the Zhuhai Air Show at the end of 2022, the first flight time of this rocket has become a matter of great concern to the outside world.

In the official account after the successful first flight of Tianlong II in 2023, Tianbing Technology said that Tianlong III "plans to complete the first flight of the rocket in 2024". However, since then, this time point has been pushed again and again in the official account: the issue on February 15, 2023 will be specific to the "beginning of 2024"; The document dated October 25, 2023 has been changed to "First Half of 2024"; The article on November 8, 2023 provided a specific month, "Challenge maiden flight in June 2024".

By February 2024, Tianbing Science and Technology will further clarify in the official account that Tianlong 3 "will be included in the national launch plan, and there will be three launch missions in 2024".

But on June 30, 2024, instead of waiting for its maiden flight, the Tianlong III encountered an accident during a ground test.

Between Two Accidents

On the afternoon of June 30, 2024, at 3:43 pm, the first stage of Tianlong III underwent a hot test of the nine machine parallel power system at the Gongyi Comprehensive Test Center in Henan Province.

Gongyi Test Center is a test base built by Tianbing Technology since 2020. It has four test benches with different thrust levels, ranging from 100 tons to 1000 tons, and has completed nearly a hundred engine hot tests before. The parallel test of the nine aircraft of Tianlong III is the largest and most powerful test since the commissioning of this testing center.

Test drive is a key ground test in the rocket development process. Its method is to fix the rocket on the test bench and ignite it, allowing the engine to work according to the flight state, verifying whether the power system and various subsystems can coordinate and cooperate normally. It is also the most difficult and comprehensive experiment before the rocket's maiden flight.

The first stage of Tianlong-3 is equipped with 9 Tianhuo-12 engines, each with a ground thrust of 110 tons. The total thrust generated by the 9 engines working simultaneously exceeds 800 tons.

What is the concept of parallel connection of 9 engines? Each engine is injecting gas at extremely high temperatures and pressures. When 9 engines are ignited simultaneously, the propellant must be evenly distributed to each engine. Any thrust fluctuation beyond the range of one engine will generate a deflection torque, affecting the attitude of the rocket body. At the same time, vibration coupling occurs between engines, and the vibration of one engine is transmitted to another through the arrow structure, which may cause resonance.

All of these need to be identified and corrected by the control system within milliseconds.

In the domestic commercial aerospace field, the nine machine parallel scale of Tianlong-3 is the first time. According to the relevant information disclosed by Tianbing Technology on the official official account, on the day of test run on June 30, 2024, nine engines were ignited normally and the thrust reached 820 tons. The engine itself is working normally, but the connection between the arrow body and the test bench cannot withstand it, resulting in structural failure. So, a sub stage rocket detached from the test bench, and after taking off, the computer on the rocket automatically shut down. The rocket fell into a mountainous area 1.5 kilometers away from the test bench, and the rocket disintegrated.

Before the experiment, Tianbing Technology and the local government jointly organized the evacuation of surrounding personnel, and after investigation, there were no casualties.

After Tianbing Technology completed its zeroing, it was mentioned in the official account in July 2025 that the direct reason for the failure of this test was "weak structural design of the rocket tail", and the engine itself worked normally. Before the experiment, the market was generally concerned about the difficulty of nine machine parallel connection, which focused on engine coordination and control system. However, the problem in the experiment was actually the structural connection.

This incident has a significant impact on Tianbing Technology. After the accident, the official account of Tianbing Technology remained silent for a whole year, and the development progress was not released again until July 11, 2025.

During the zeroing period of the "630 test accident" mentioned above, Tianbing Technology formulated 127 reliability improvement measures and added 13 ground verification tests. According to public information, these improvements include: using new materials to increase the safety factor of the connection structure to 1.5 times the industry standard, adding redundant constraint devices, adding 8 ground safety shutdown methods, and collaborating with third-party organizations to review and recalculate 63 key technologies. In addition, the company has made 258 improvements in enterprise management and commissioned the Safety Evaluation Center of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation to conduct acceptance evaluations according to the first level safety standards for military aerospace.

A new slogan also frequently appears in the subsequent external propaganda materials of Tianbing Technology: 'Stability is the top priority, seeking progress while maintaining stability'.

In July 2025, the nine machine joint static test was completed, verifying the effectiveness of the zeroing measures. In the same month, Tianbing Technology passed the completion acceptance of the first private liquid oxygen kerosene rocket launch station in Jiuquan, China, and immediately completed the joint vertical training of the Tianlong-3 1:1 scale model rocket and launch equipment.

On September 15, 2025, the first stage power system of Tianlong-3 completed sea trials at the Dongfang Aerospace Port in Haiyang, Shandong, and all parameters met the requirements for maiden flight. After successful testing, Tianbing Technology announced that the test rocket body will be directly used for the first flight mission of Tianlong-3 after completing necessary inspections and maintenance.

In the next few months, the separation test, transportation test, and vibration test of the Tianlong-3 rocket with 36 satellites will be completed one after another. The satellite measurement and launch technology factory in Jiuquan also passed the pre acceptance in February 2026, with a construction area of over 3000 square meters, integrating functions such as satellite assembly, multi satellite testing, and satellite rocket docking.

From the launch station to the testing plant, Tianbing Technology has built a complete launch infrastructure in Jiuquan.

In October 2025, a total of nearly 2.5 billion yuan in financing from Pre-D and D rounds was received, and Tianbing Technology's valuation rose to approximately 22.5 billion yuan. In the same month, a reporter from the Economic Observer conducted a written interview with Kang Yonglai, the founder of Tianbing Technology, regarding the development progress of Tianlong-3. At that time, Kang Yonglai replied that he planned to carry out the first flight mission of Tianlong-3 before the end of 2025. But it was not until April 3, 2026, that the Tianlong III Yaoyi finally stood on the launch pad of Jiuquan.

The Economic Observer confirmed from the perspective of Tianbing Technology that the Tianlong-3 Y1-1 is equipped with an experimental satellite.

At 12:17 on April 3rd, the rocket ignited and took off from Jiuquan. Shortly after takeoff, it experienced an abnormality during flight and disintegrated in mid air. In the afternoon of the same day, Tianbing Technology released a brief statement on the official account, saying that the rocket flight was abnormal and the first flight test mission failed. The specific reasons are being further analyzed and investigated, and the zeroing procedure has been strictly implemented in conjunction with relevant experts and technical teams.

As a result, Tianlong III of Tianbing Technology experienced two major accidents within two years: the June 2024 test accident, in which the first stage of Tianlong III was still fixed on the ground test platform due to weak tail structure design, causing the rocket to detach from the test platform, which was an error during the ground test phase; The first flight in April 2026 failed, and the Tianlong III Yaoyi has already ignited and taken off. The problem lies in the flight process.

This week of failed maiden flight

On the evening of March 30, 2026, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation's Lijian-2 successfully made its maiden flight in Jiuquan, sending the prototype spacecraft of the light boat into the predetermined orbit. Lijian-2 has a low Earth orbit capacity of 12 tons.

Four days later, the first flight of Tianlong III by Tianbing Technology failed.

From the perspective of design specifications, the transport capacity of Lijian-2 is smaller than that of Tianlong-3, which has a design specification of 17 to 22 tons in low Earth orbit. But Lijian-2 successfully flew first. In the current competition of commercial aerospace, "flying first" itself is an advantage. It means accumulating flight data, signing launch contracts with customers with actual delivery time, and meeting the technical threshold for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. In fact, Zhongke Aerospace's IPO has been accepted, with plans to raise 4.18 billion yuan.

On April 7th, four days after the failure of the first flight of Tianlong-3, the seventh batch of networked satellites of the Qianfan constellation was successfully launched from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site, with one rocket carrying 18 satellites. On April 9th, the 21st group of low orbit satellites from Xingwang was successfully launched in Taiyuan. Within 2 days, both large-scale low orbit constellation network launches were successful. In fact, multiple types of "national team" rockets such as Long March 6A and Long March 8A, which undertake the networking tasks of the Star Network and Thousand Sails constellations, have successfully entered orbit since their launch.

In addition, according to the relevant guidelines issued by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, private rocket companies need to be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, and companies applying for listing need to achieve the first successful launch of medium and large-sized carrier rocket payloads using reusable technology into orbit.

In addition to Zhongke Aerospace, another leading private rocket company, Blue Arrow Aerospace, successfully launched Zhuque-3 into orbit in December 2025. Although the first stage failed to recover, the second stage successfully entered orbit, meeting the above conditions. In addition, Blue Arrow Aerospace's Science and Technology Innovation Board IPO has also been accepted, with plans to raise 7.5 billion yuan.

Tianlong-3 of Tianbing Technology brought a satellite up this time, but it failed to enter orbit. This means that its launch rhythm is likely to be affected before it goes around and successfully enters orbit.

In the future, Tianbing Technology will not only face its "old rival" that is already ahead - Interstellar Honor, which completed a financing of 5.037 billion yuan in February this year, and its "Hyperbolic III" rocket plan to challenge orbit insertion and sea recovery by the end of the year; Jianyuan Technology has already produced three "Yuanxing-1" rockets, both aiming for their first flight by the end of 2026; Deep Blue Aerospace also plans to carry out two missions this year, one for sea recovery testing and the other for delivery and launch at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The number of contestants on the track is increasing, and the time and market space left for every private rocket company is being compressed.

Tianbing Technology completed its IPO counseling filing in October 2025, and it has been almost half a year since its first flight failure. According to statistics based on public information, Tianbing Technology currently has 65 shareholders. Over the course of 7 years, from angel to D-round, each round of financing means new shareholders, new terms, or exit expectations.

The reporter learned from the interview that the duration of commercial aerospace funds is usually 5 to 7 years. Tianbing Technology, established in 2019, may have faced expiration or extension pressure from the earliest investors' funds.

In addition, due to the huge potential demand for network transmission, the patience of Party A may also be limited. If a private rocket company fails to produce usable products for a long time, Party A's networking plan will not stop, but will continue to be handed over to the national team's rockets.

An investor who has long been interested in the commercial aerospace industry told Economic Observer reporters that the commercial launch market will become increasingly concentrated in the future. "If a company achieves a significant breakthrough in price first, the survival opportunities for other companies will be particularly limited.

At present, the launch price of mature commercial rockets in China is about 50000 to 70000 yuan per kilogram, and the industry's goal is to reduce it to below 20000 yuan. To reach that point, the prerequisite is reusability: the same rocket flies up, falls back, undergoes maintenance, and then flies again. The reporter learned from the interview that the first stage (including the engine) of a rocket accounts for 60% to 70% of the total cost of the rocket. If the first stage can be recycled and reused more than 6 times, the cost of a single launch can be reduced to about 60% of the cost of the first flight.

The Tianlong III was designed with interfaces reserved for grid rudders and recovery legs, with the goal of achieving first level recovery. But the prerequisite for reusability is successful flight first.

Of course, the rocket industry never lacks precedents of turning things around after failure. For example, SpaceX's Falcon 1 failed all three launches before successfully entering orbit on the fourth. But the situation that Tianbing Technology is facing today is very different from SpaceX back then: some of its peers have successfully flown, the first party has started to build their own rockets, the launch frequency of the national team is still accelerating, and the pressure for early investors to withdraw has also begun to emerge

Multiple private liquid rockets are waiting in line for their maiden flight, and the listing window for the capital market has opened. However, it is unknown how long it will last, and the network schedule for large constellations is also not waiting.

For Tianbing Technology, after the failure of the first flight of Tianlong-3, there will definitely be opportunities, but not many times.