Chinese startup Astronstone (also known as Xingchen Space) officially announced the involvement of more than 200 million yuan (about 29 millions of dollars) as part of a Pre-A Series financing round. These funds are intended to accelerate the development and testing of their flagship reusable launch vehicle.
Key aspects of funding and development
Investors: The round was led by the Zhongguancun Science City Foundation, joined by several public and private venture capital institutions in China.
Goal: Financing the development of a liquid rocket engine “Stellar-1”, that works on a fuel pair of methane - liquid oxygen, as well as preparation for the first vertical takeoff and landing (VTVL) rocket prototype.
Technology: The company focuses on creating reusable degrees, which will significantly reduce the cost of launching the payload into orbit, by analogy with the Falcon 9 from SpaceX.
About the Astronstone company: Astronstone was founded in 2023 year from the leading state space institutes of China (CASIC and CASC). The company is part of a new wave of private Chinese space enterprises, which compete for the right to deploy national mega-satellite constellations (example, “G60 Starlink”).
Current status of the project: The company has already conducted successful fire tests of engine components. IN 2026 a full-scale test is planned for “jump” (hop test) to work out the algorithms of automatic landing on jet thrust.
This capital injection underscores China's private rocket industry boom, where the state actively stimulates the commercial sector to strengthen its position in the space race.
Source: https://spacenews.com