NEBULA (Xīngyún, 星云) — China This rocket was supposed to be ready quite soon, so I figured I had to write it up, but for a long time I couldn’t because there was just nothing to say. Finally I just went ahead with what little I could find. I have no idea whether the company is even legit enough to be worth the effort. The company’s name is Shēnlán Hángtiān (深蓝航天), or Deep Blue Aerospace. Most of the more technical info I could gather is from the company’s website, which has a “中文|EN” language button that in the early days didn’t work. All I could gather between that and news reports is that the Nebula-1 will be a two stage smallsat launcher with maybe nine 3D-printed kerosene engines on the first stage, with a thrust of 360 kN apiece in vacuum. The engine is called the 深蓝雷霆-20 (Shēnlán léitíng-20, or Deep Blue Thunder-20), and rumor said it was a closed-cycle engine, like maybe an oxygen-rich staged combustion design, but I have no confirmation. The upper stage apparently uses the same engine, presumably with a vacuum bell. Later the site also illustrated a Nebula-2 model, which is shown as a Nebula-1 with landing legs photoshopped on. So yeah, they plan to try for reuse with vertical landings. They also mention a Thunder-100 engine with 1000 kN of thrust. Apparently this will be for the Nebula-2, which will be larger, with a capacity goal of 4.5 tons. I think the picture showing a group of nine engines applies to this rocket. Some journalists said that they will attempt reuse on the Nebula-1, but I had no definite evidence for this claim until they actually tried a hop flight with it. It landed too hard and broke up, but before that it did successfully hover directly above the landing pad, after dropping about five kilometers. This was preceded by a small Nebula-M test vehicle. In the fall of 2021 this did a hop test, rising 100 meters and then landing on legs. That was preceded by a 10 meter hop. And now they are definitely going for reuse up front. The “M” hopper had electrically pumped engines. Not bad, but these guys might still be months or years from reaching orbit, let alone doing so reusably with a bigger rocket. But that didn’t stop them from claiming way back in 2020 that they would launch by the end of that year. But that first hop test of the full-sized Nebula didn’t happen until 2024. By that point their website had settled on new designs for the Nebula 1 and 2 which looked as Falconlike as possible, except with blue paint. Actually the main difference is just that they are proportioned shorter and wider. The 1 is targeting a capacity of 2 tons soon and 8 tons later, and would have about the same diameter as a Falcon 9 (which is a lot fatter than what they originally planned) but a lot less height. It would have nine kerosene engines at the bottom, one more on the upper stage, four triangulsr legs, four grid fins on the interstage, and will land at sea, exactlynpike a Falcon o. The 2 would increase the diameter to five meters (the size of a Vulcan), turn the number of first stage engines up to eleven, and make the engines bigger, to target a 25 ton capacity. Their claims about the engine are rather unintelligible due to translation issues: “The first kerosene engine with needle-bolt technology in China. Pump after swing, compact structure.” Thrust in vacuum is now 285 kilonewtons, with a pretty deep throttling range. The picture shows an ooen cycle exhaust so it must be a gas generator. And now they’ve announced a suborbital passenger ride with the unexpected name of “Rocketaholic”. Their crew capsule looks very much like a Dragon on the outside, with the oval windows and the angled escape rockets on the sides, but it has six non-reclined seats like a New Shepard capsule. It rides on a single stage Nebula-1, and apparently stays attached to it during landing. They hope to reach higher altitudes than New Shepard, and start flying rich people in 2027. Of course, they hope people start buying advance tickets now. Nebula-1: Mass unknown, diam 3.35 m, thrust 1950 kN?, imp unknown, gas generator? (kerosene), payload 2.0 t, cost unknown.