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China accelerates LEO satellite deployment with two launches in 12 days, but gap remains in launchpad efficiency, rocket reusability: expert_我的网站

一 |     BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- An attorney for the mother of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, who disappeared in Aruba, said a possible plea deal with a suspect in an extortion case is contingent upon his disclosing details about her death.Joran van der Sloot, long considered the chief suspect in Holloway's 2005 disappearance, is scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday morning in Birmingham, Alabama, for a plea and sentencing hearing for a case in which he is accused of trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway's mother in 2010 to reveal the location of her body. John Q. Kelly, an attorney who represented Holloway's mother during the alleged extortion, told The Associated Press Tuesday that a potential plea deal is contingent upon him revealing information about what happened to Holloway. Kelly first made the comments on NBC's “Today” show. Emails sent to van der Sloot’s attorney and a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors were not immediately returned.Holloway's family has long sought answers about her disappearance. But those answers have proven elusive. Van der Sloot has given a variety of conflicting descriptions over the years about what happened, which would likely put raised scrutiny on any new account. Her family is expected to be in court Wednesday.Holloway went missing during a high school graduation trip with classmates to Aruba. The Alabama teen was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a student at an international school. The mysterious disappearance sparked years of news coverage and true-crime podcasts, books and movies. Van der Sloot was identified as a main suspect and was detained for questioning but no charges were filed in the case.A judge declared Holloway dead but her body has never been found. Prosecutors in the Alabama case said van der Sloot contacted Kelly in 2010 and asked for $250,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughter's remains. He later agreed to accept $25,000 to disclose the location, and asked for the other $225,000 once the remains were recovered. Van der Sloot said that Holloway was buried in the gravel under the foundation of a house, but later admitted that was untrue, FBI Agent William K. Bryan wrote in a 2010 sworn statement filed in the case. Van der Sloot moved from Aruba to Peru before he could be arrested in the extortion case. Van der Sloot was extradited to Alabama earlier this year from Peru, where he’s serving a 28-year sentence after confessing to killing a Peruvian woman in 2010. Peru’s government allowed van der Sloot’s temporary extradition to the U.S. to face charges there. Under a 2001 treaty between the countries, a suspect can be temporarily extradited to face trial in the other country, but must “be returned” after judicial proceedings are concluded.。    

    The 24th group of the low-orbit internet satellites aboard a Long March-12 carrier rocket is launched at 12:10 pm on August 16, 2026 from a commercial spacecraft launch site in the southern island province of Hainan. Photo: VCG
Two successful launches among China's recent frequent moves caught particular attention of space watchers - the 24th group of low-Earth orbit internet (LEO) satellites aboard a Long March-12 rocket was sent from a commercial spacecraft launch site in the southern island province of Hainan on Sunday, 12 days after the 23rd group of LEO satellites aboard a Long March-8A rocket was launched from the same Hainan site on August 4.
Sunday's mission marked the 663rd launch of the Long March series of carrier rockets, which on Monday sent an SEO satellite into preset orbit, per Xinhua.
Experts said the launches of two groups of LEO satellites within 12 days underlined that China is notably accelerating its pace of building its satellite internet constellation.
"The launch of LEO satellites has now entered a regular and cyclical rhythm, with batches of satellites continuously being sent into orbit at relatively stable intervals," Kang Guohua, a senior member of the Chinese Society of Astronautics and a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, told the Global Times on Monday.
China launched the first group of LEO internet satellites on December 16, 2024, proceeding to the 24th batch in about 20 months. Kang said three major production and launch "assembly lines" are supporting the effort: satellite factories featuring centralized design in Beijing, coordinated supply chains and mass production; rockets with streamlined launch and testing procedures and multiple configurations; and launch sites capable of supporting routine constellation deployment.
The Long March-12, which played a key role in the latest LEO satellite launch, is China's first 4-meter-class single-core-stage carrier rocket and was specifically developed for commercial launch needs. It is about 62.6 meters long, has a liftoff mass of 430 tons and can carry more than 12 tons to low-Earth orbit. Its first stage is equipped with four 1,250-kilonewton pump-fed liquid oxygen-kerosene engines and uses a newly developed coal-based aerospace kerosene, according to Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.
The rocket adopts a "three-horizontal" launch preparation model: horizontal assembly, horizontal testing and horizontal transportation. Depending on mission requirements, it can use fairings with diameters of 4.2 or 5.2 meters and support both single-satellite and multi-satellite launches into different orbits.
"This flexibility makes the Long March-12 particularly suitable for the 'one rocket, multiple satellites' model required for constellation deployment, making it one of the main launch vehicles currently used for LEO constellation missions," Kang said.
The mission also highlighted the launch site's growing ability to support high-frequency launches. The rocket took only two and a half days from being transported to the launch area to liftoff, setting a record for the shortest time a rocket occupied the launch position at the site, Kang said.
Despite the rapid progress, experts cautioned that the 228 satellites currently in orbit remain some distance from the ultimate goal. China's satellite internet project has a long-term goal of deploying nearly 8,000 satellites and is now in an accelerated "weaving" phase.
China's advantage lies in its ability to control costs and boost production efficiency once satellite manufacturing reaches mass-production scale, another expert surnamed Liu told the Global Times.
"Whether it is the production capacity of AI centers or the factory in Hainan, which has an annual satellite manufacturing capacity of 1,000 units, satellite production itself is not the problem," Liu said. "More bottlenecks lie in the operational efficiency of launch pads and the rocket payload and recovery technology."
The real challenge lies in rocket reusability. Only by lowering launch costs and increasing launch frequency can China sustain a pace of more than one launch per week. This is also the strategic significance of accelerating the development of reusable rocket technology, including the Long March-10B and privately developed rockets, Kang further noted.
Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Deng Zhongliang previously said in an interview that satellite internet will serve as an indispensable space-time infrastructure for 6G, enabling emerging industries worth trillions of yuan, including the low-altitude economy, advanced autonomous driving and the Internet of Things (IoT).
    The 23rd group of low-orbit internet satellites aboard a Long March-8A carrier rocket is launched on August 4, 2026 from a commercial spacecraft launch site in the southern island province of Hainan. Photo: VCG
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