Beijing’s expendable launch system Chang Zheng 2C (Long March 2C) that sent into orbit three Yaogan 30 satellites from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre on Friday, had grid fins that allowed for greater precision in control of the landing location during the first rocket stage.
The Long March 2 has grid fins now 😮😮😮🙃🙃🙃 https://t.co/JMjG1ZEc6G
— Matthew Travis (@MatthewBTravis) July 26, 2019
The images of the rocket, published by Chinese media, sport among other things four grid fins mounted on the connector between the first and the second stages. As the stages separate after the launch, the connector with the lattice fins remain on the first stage making it possible to better steer the part of the rocket as it falls to Earth, having fulfilled its function.
And here's the apparent landing of the Long March 2C with those grid fins. Oof. https://t.co/BHQgNiXd8c pic.twitter.com/liGtA5JzKR
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) July 26, 2019
The moment is clearly captured in videos posted to Chinese microblog Weibo, which focus on the first stage’s vertical, well-guided descent to the planet’s surface; and they quickly went viral on Twitter.
Notably, this Long March 2C had grid fins for the first time, which, as noted here, launch vehicle designer CALT says are for "techniques to minimize drop zone areas through control of the rocket stage"https://t.co/Cq7Eh9MZJy pic.twitter.com/pMgQkFxgtA
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) July 26, 2019
Meanwhile, the used stages of Chinese rockets regularly destroying buildings in the country are meanwhile a common subject of videos and general posts on Chinese social media.
Such lattice fins were first used for the above purpose by Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX to provide well-guided landing on Earth for Falcon 9’s first stages. The entrepreneur and top engineer behind Tesla’s and SpaceX’s widely covered projects earlier applauded the PRC’s national space programme reacting to the news about the country deorbiting its preliminary space lab Tiangong-2 (which means “heavenly place”) designed as a test run for various technologies before a bigger space station is sent into orbit in 2020.
“This is actually a good thing btw. China is making amazing progress in space, rapidly iterating on rocket & space station technology. Great respect”, Musk tweeted on 19 July.
