(Yicai) Jan. 20 -- Beijing's Rocket Street project has gone live, becoming China's first shared scientific research and production hub in the commercial aerospace sector.

Located in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, the Rocket Street covers an area of 145,000 square meters and includes four major functional zones: a common technology platform, an innovation research and development center, a high-end manufacturing center, and an exhibition and operation control center.

The core concept and feature of the industrial park's layout is "upstairs and downstairs are also upstream and downstream," emphasizing the integration of various processes within the commercial aerospace industry.

The Rocket Street will offer more than 10 shared services for firms settled there in the future, including satellite and rocket R&D testing, smart manufacturing platforms, and integrated space-ground operation control. These encompass various testing services covering vibration, thermal vacuum, electrical, static, and separation tests, as well as scientific research and production support services such as three-dimensional printing and reliable component supply.

The Rocket Street project provides commercial space companies access to publicly available service resources, an insider from a rocket firm in Beijing told Yicai. This eliminates the need to travel across the country and repeatedly queue to secure testing resources, allowing companies to allocate more resources towards the development of new products, the person said, adding that the overall operational efficiency and engineering capabilities of the park are also expected to improve.

"Commercial aerospace companies previously had to search for locations to conduct tests," the insider noted. "Almost every firm needed to build its own testing platforms and structural components plants, which resulted in high operational costs and low work efficiency."

Commercial aerospace is one of the key industries in the BDA, gathering more than 180 firms, including 75 percent of China's commercial rocket companies.

A commercial aerospace industry cluster worth CNY50 billion (USD7.2 billion) is expected to be formed in the BDA by 2028, according to the zone's industrial development plan released at the beginning of last year. In addition, the area should house over 1,000 commercial aerospace and related ecological firms within five years after 2028, with the cluster's annual revenue to exceed CNY100 billion (USD14.4 billion) and the cumulative launch more than 1,000 satellites into orbit.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev