Haiyang Spaceport

Note: this page may be renamed as I'm not currently certain the name is correct; the site didn't exist before 2019 so the status is still developing. Todo: update this page once more information comes out!

Haiyang Spaceport (or "Military Base in Shandong Province" at Yantai, according to the SCMP) is a facility built on reclaimed land in either 2019 or 2020. There was a smaller building before then, but it seems most of the peninsula was dredged up in the last 20 years (Google Earth in 1985 shows basically nothing there). The facility is apparently being built by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC). The first public reference of the facility seems to have been in August 2020 as the "Eastern Aerospace Port", with talk of sea launches to, erm, avoid the "fun" of BFRCs when stages fall on villages, a common issue with existing inland launch sites. Similar to SpaceX in the US, it appears the intent is to create launch/landing/recovery platforms out over the ocean, based around this site.

In November 2021, several events happened at the site. Firstly, it regained western newsmedia attention as renderings of a sea launch platform were released. Secondly, several pictures and video clips were released by the SCMP of a solid booster test "on a military base in Shandong province" (unnamed). Other clips were correlated and found to match the site on the same day. China seems to have underestimated what bored graduate students will do for fun, at least this time. While some activities at the site have been secretive/hidden, other activities are publicized over the official social media channel on QQ.

Note that this is not the Yantai Military Airport (previously public until 2015, when the military took the airstrip back over). It is unknown if there are any connections between the two sites (this was a possible candidate location for the November 2021 test).