Wenchang Commercial Launch Site Aiming for 20+ Missions This Year Following Provincial Leadership Visits
New launch pads are still set to be completed toward the end of 2026, but are now expected ahead of schedule.
During the Spring Festival (春节) on February 21st, the Governor of Hainan (海南) province, Liu Xiaoming (刘小明), visited the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site to understand the current progress of construction. A few days after the festivities, on February 25th, Party Secretary of Hainan Feng Fei (冯飞) also visited the site.1
During the governor’s visit, Commercial Launch Pads 3 and 4 were shown to Liu for him to inspect, alongside the launch control center and missions preparation facilities, where he was informed about Wenchang Commercial’s third launch mission of the year2. As his visit was during the festivities, Liu Xiaoming wished the present staff well and urged them to commit themselves to developing a high-quality industry in Hainan.
When Feng visited the launch site, he was also shown the new launch pads and inspected commodity systems up close before being invited into iSpace’s launch vehicle processing and refurbishment facility a short distance away. Like Liu, Feng Fei encouraged launch site workers support the development of the space industry, with an emphasis on accelerating the establishment of satellite and space data investments within Hainan.
Between the two visits, Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co Ltd (海南国际商业航天发射有限公司), operator of the launch site, announced that they are aiming to support over twenty launches this year between Commercial Launch Pad 1 and 2. So far, two missions have taken place in 2026, a Long March 8A and a Long March 12, with the debut flights of the partially reusable Long March 10B and iSpace’s Hyperbola-3 set to be on this year’s schedule.
Starting as early as the completion of the two under-construction launch pads, Yang Tianliang (杨天梁), Chairman of the commercial launch site, would like to see a doubling of this year’s vague launch aim, with him telling the media:
“We will rapidly complete Phase Two of [expansion] and achieve the first launch from the two [new] launch pads. By the end of next year3, we will achieve four concurrent workstations, enabling an annual launch capacity of approximately fifty to sixty launches.”
If there are any problems with this translation please reach out and correct me.
While lofty aims were shared and the provincial leadership visits were underway, construction efforts across the site continued through the efforts of around six hundred workers over the Spring Festival. With Commercial Launch Pad 3 and 4 finishing major work on their flame trenches in December and with construction of the structures rising above the surface not long after, pipelines of commodity systems have begun to be installed. Commodity systems being installed include propellants for launch vehicles, gases to pressurise tanks, and water that will douse the pad during liftoff.
Between the two new launch pads, a shared water storage tower for their deluge systems is rising into the skyline. By having a shared tower, the two pads will supposedly be easier to maintain while being relatively flat (excluding lighting diversion towers) compared to Commercial Launch Pad 2, and differing from Wenchang’s usual approach of having the deluge system’s water stored at the top of the launch vehicle’s service tower. At the moment, construction of the water tower and the two launch pads is claimed to be around two months ahead of schedule for potential use early in the fourth quarter (October, November, December).
Away from the launch pads, the buildup of new support facilities for preparing more launch vehicles and spacecraft, as well as additional tracking and telemetry infrastructure, has proceeded. As those new facilities are being gradually progressed, systems that will reside within them are being installed at the same time to have them operational not long after completion.
A note of provincial leadership in China: the position of Provincial Party Secretary is higher than that of Provincial Governor.
What the mission will be flown via is unknown. No hazard notices have appeared at the time of publication.
Possibly referring to the Year of the Horse (February 17th 2026 to February 5th 2027) as Yang Tianliang was interviewed before the Spring Festival.