Galactic Energy starts Langfang trial ops for 50 rockets/year of parts; Cangqiong-50 engines 90% AM by mass

Galactic Energy has begun trial operations at its Langfang core-parts base in the Beijing Daxing Airport Economic Zone, with annual capacity for core components of 30 Ceres solid and 20 Pallas liquid launch vehicles-50 rockets a year. Trial production started in June 2026 on four key lines that will rely heavily on metal additive manufacturing. On the Cangqiong-50 reusable LOX/kerosene engine, regenerative-cooled thrust-chamber bodies are largely 3D-printed, then joined by welding. Versus conventional builds, that route is reported to raise engine performance by more than 3%, cut thrust-chamber cost by 15%, shorten the cycle by 30%, and put printed parts at over 90% of engine mass by weight.

Since a subsidiary settled in Langfang in May 2023, Galactic Energy has flown 21 commercial missions and delivered 89 satellites, the most among Chinese private launch firms by flight count. The plant codifies a Beijing-research / Langfang-production split, moving 110-plus patents and more than 30 core parts-including liquid engines and orbit/attitude control hardware-into serial manufacture. Metal AM is applied where unit economics matter: compressing cost and lead time on the chamber stack that dominates reusable LOX/kerosene engine production, not as a demo cell. At a stated one-rocket-per-week parts cadence, printed regenerative chambers function as a rate and cost lever for commercial launch.

For the metal AM supply chain, the takeaway is demand from private Chinese space manufacturing under launch-cadence pressure, not another one-off aerospace prototype program.