Tianqi-11 - Gushenxing-1 (Y1) 'Ceres-1' - Jiuquan - Nov 7, 2020 (07:12 UTC)

[jcm]

https://weibo.com/5616492130/JsO4utP9T

Is Scorpio 1 another name for the payload? What does ASES 014 mean?

Deployment animation.

ASES is Shanghai ASES Spaceflight Tech Co., which makes the bus for Tianqi.

[jcm]

Do we have any idea what the 4th stage ("Edge" AOCS) uses as propellant?

[Steven Pietrobon]

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ec7rNH-mkgLWjFgyll_htA

"Valley Star 1 (remote one) carrier rocket" is a four-stage solid launch vehicle designed by Star River Power, one, two, three solid engines, four stages for advanced liquid top stage, rocket diameter 1.4m, a total length of 19m, take-off mass 31t, 500km solar synchronous orbit carrying capacity of 300kg. In addition to the satellite, the capsule also carried three chips, each storing the star river power group's "Summer 2" program group through the micro-blogging campaign to collect the words of the most caring people, musician Pang Kwan's latest single "Time after time" and Star River Power Company Employees to help the motherland's space exploration of the good wishes, they and the rocket's last stage into space together, at the same time, in this launch with the help of the rocket's last sub-stage orbit passivation, Xinghe Power and Beijing Aerospace Ark Space Technology Co., Ltd. jointly carried out a "commercial return satellite orbit re-entry" key technology verification.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Do we have any idea what the 4th stage ("Edge" AOCS) uses as propellant?

These images might say what the propellant is. Looks like your standard hypergolics.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ec7rNH-mkgLWjFgyll_htA

[otter]

Short article from Xinhua


China's commercial rocket CERES-1 completes maiden flight

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-11/07/c_139498563.htm

JIUQUAN, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- China's new carrier rocket CERES-1, designed for commercial use, made its maiden flight on Saturday, sending one satellite into planned orbit.

The rocket blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 3:12 p.m. (Beijing Time).

[jcm]

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ec7rNH-mkgLWjFgyll_htA

"Valley Star 1 (remote one) carrier rocket" is a four-stage solid launch vehicle designed by Star River Power, one, two, three solid engines, four stages for advanced liquid top stage, rocket diameter 1.4m, a total length of 19m, take-off mass 31t, 500km solar synchronous orbit carrying capacity of 300kg. In addition to the satellite, the capsule also carried three chips, each storing the star river power group's "Summer 2" program group through the micro-blogging campaign to collect the words of the most caring people, musician Pang Kwan's latest single "Time after time" and Star River Power Company Employees to help the motherland's space exploration of the good wishes, they and the rocket's last stage into space together, at the same time, in this launch with the help of the rocket's last sub-stage orbit passivation, Xinghe Power and Beijing Aerospace Ark Space Technology Co., Ltd. jointly carried out a "commercial return satellite orbit re-entry" key technology verification.

My attempt at the same text:

The "Ceres 1 (Y1) carrier rocket" is a four-stage solid launch vehicle
independently designed by Galaxy Power. The first, second and third
stages use solid engines, and the fourth stage is an advanced liquid 
upper stage. The rocket diameter is 1.4m, the total length is 19m, and
the take-off mass 31t,  To a 500km sun-synchronous orbit it has a carrying
capacity of 300kg. In addition to the satellite, the [final stage?] also carries
3 chips, each of which stores the latest single "Summer of the Band 2" by the Galaxy
Power group collected in a Weibo campaign and "What I want to Say to the person who cares most", Pan Kuan's
latest single
"Time after Time"  and the good wishes of Galaxy Power's employees for the success
of the motherland's space exploration. They entered space together with the
last stage of the rocket. At the same time Galaxy Power and
Bejing Aerospace Ark Space Technology Co on this launch used the last stage of the
rocket to carry out de-orbit passivation, and carry out key technology
verifcation of 'commercial return satellite orbit reentry'.

[otter]

Launch video from CCTV

https://tv.cctv.com/2020/11/07/VIDEeIDL0muodkoH88WzHYt1201107.shtml

[otter]

More videos

https://tv.cctv.com/2020/11/07/VIDE8MLd6OtHBe6OHZ98S7Xw201107.shtml
https://tv.cctv.com/2020/11/07/VIDEZS2elr7jSKr5imToqMAV201107.shtml
https://tv.cctv.com/2020/11/07/VIDEtLOe3BhVH3RZDK3yxWQb201107.shtml

[FutureSpaceTourist]

[zandr]

Extended version in Russian from Xinhua
http://russian.news.cn/2020-11/07/c_139498867.htm

Jiuquan, November 7 / Xinhua/ -- China's New CERES-1 launch vehicle, designed for commercial use, successfully completed its first flight on Saturday, delivering one satellite to a designated orbit.
The rocket was launched into space from the Jiuquan space center in Northwest China at 15: 12 Beijing time.
CERES-1 is a small solid-fuel launch vehicle that can launch micro and small satellites into low-earth orbit. It was developed by the Beijing-based high-tech company Galactic Energy.
During its first flight, it delivered the 11th satellite for the emerging Tianqi satellite constellation, which will be primarily used for data collection and transmission.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Some screen grabs from the videos.

[Chris Bergin]

Rui's overview:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/11/introducing-chinas-new-commercial-rocket-ceres-1/

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1325575816328212481

[otter]

Moderators forgot to place this launch in the calendar

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=calendar

[Skyrocket]

A question for those fluent in the Chinese language:

What does Gushenxing (谷神星) literally mean? According to Google translate, it means Ceres. But Ceres is proper name from the Latin language and Gushenxing does not appear to be a transliteration from the name of the Roman goddess (well, at least the Pinyin transliteration shows no obvious similarity).

Any insight, how the words Ceres and Gushenxing are related?

[Kryten]

 I'm not a Chinese speaker, but AIUI post-classical planet names are rendered into Chinese as literal translations of the god/dess they're named after; so Ceres becomes 'grain-goddess star' (Gushenxing), Pluto is 'underworld king star' and Neptune is 'sea king star'.

[Skyrocket]

I'm not a Chinese speaker, but AIUI post-classical planet names are rendered into Chinese as literal translations of the god/dess they're named after; so Ceres becomes 'grain-goddess star' (Gushenxing), Pluto is 'underworld king star' and Neptune is 'sea king star'.

Thanks, this explains it.

[GELORD]

Start designation "01-127". TO 15:12:00.240 BJT / 07:12:00.240 UTC.

[Alter Sachse]

Sorry, I see 15:12:00.240

[Steven Pietrobon]

Here's a nice photo of the vehicle on the pad that I got from

http://www.galactic-energy.cn/index.php/List/cid/7

The photo is dated 7 November 2020 with a time stamp of 11:20:15, so was taken about four hours before launch.