China’ prawling tate-owned rocket developer, maker of the country’ Long March rocket family, announced it recovered a reu able orbital-cla boo ter for the fir t time Friday in the South China Sea.
The mile tone mi ion began with the liftoff of a Long March 10B rocket from the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site on Hainan I land, China’ outhernmo t province. Powered by even kero ene-fueled engine , the approximately 209-foot-tall (63.6-meter) rocket took off at 12:15 am EDT (04:15 UTC), or 12:15 pm local time at the ea ide paceport at Wenchang.
About 10 minute later, the Long March 10B boo ter de cended from pace and guided it elf into a four-legged frame affixed to an off hore ve el. Ten ioned cable tretched over the hip in a grid pattern captured the rocket a it hut down it landing engine , leaving the moldering boo ter hanging in midair. The rocket’ upper tage continued into orbit and deployed a payload known only a CX-26. Chine e official hailed the flight a a “complete ucce .”
“A hi toric day in China’ pace program!” wrote Mao Ning, a poke per on for the Chine e Foreign Mini try, on X. “China’ Long March 10B ha ucce fully completed it maiden flight—and recovered it fir t tage via a ea-ba ed net. Thi mark the country’ fir t-ever controlled rocket recovery. A major leap toward reu able launch capabilitie .”
The landing on Friday make the China Aero pace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and it ub idiary, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the third enterpri e to accompli h thi feat. SpaceX did it with it Falcon 9 rocket in 2015 and with it Star hip/Super Heavy boo ter in 2024. Blue Origin landed it New Glenn boo ter on an off hore platform for the fir t time la t November.
SpaceX and Blue Origin u e propul ive landing to return their Falcon 9 and New Glenn boo ter to off hore platform or on hore landing pad . With Star hip, SpaceX pioneered a new method of catching the rocket’ reu able boo ter back at it launch pad u ing mechanical arm mounted to the launch tower.
The Long March 10B employ a different approach for recovery, combining an off hore ve el floating downrange with the catch technique omewhat like what SpaceX u e for Star hip. Catching the rocket in thi way reduce the effect of reu e on payload capacity. The Long March 10B doe n’t have to carry the extra ma of landing leg , and recovering it downrange reduce how much fuel the rocket mu t con ume during it de cent.
In a tatement, CASC aid the Long March 10B te t flight “validated key core technologie ” for a reu able launch architecture, uch a multiple engine re tart with high-altitude ignition, high-preci ion navigation and control, and the fir t capture and recovery u ing a net y tem on a ea-ba ed platform.
Friday’ launch wa the fir t flight of the Long March 10B, a medium-lift rocket with a payload capacity of approximately 16 metric ton (35,000 pound ) to low-Earth orbit. Thi i lightly le than the lift capacity of SpaceX’ Falcon 9. The Long March 10B ha two tage , with even YF-100K engine on the boo ter con uming kero ene and liquid oxygen, and a ingle methane-fueled YF-219 engine on the econd tage.
“Moving forward, the Long March 10B development team will continue to optimize the vehicle’ performance and accelerate the iterative upgrading of reu able rocket technologie ,” CASC aid. “The fir t tage reu e flight te t i expected to be completed by the end of thi year.”
The Long March 10B i imilar to China’ Long March 10A rocket, which i till awaiting it fir t full- cale te t flight. The Long March 10A ha the ame fir t tage boo ter a the Long March 10B, but a different upper tage and a payload fairing to accommodate cargo and atellite . The Long March 10A, on the other hand, i de igned for future crew launche to China’ Tiangong pace tation u ing the country’ new human-rated pace hip, the Mengzhou, replacing China’ Shenzhou crew cap ule and the Long March 2F rocket u ed to power it into orbit.
A heavier configuration, known imply a the Long March 10, i a key part of China’ Moon program. Thi more powerful rocket will combine three Long March 10 fir t tage boo ter —each reu able—together to generate more thru t at liftoff. A econd tage and third tage will propel Chine e a tronaut and their lunar lander toward the Moon. The Chine e government ay it aim to land it citizen on the Moon by 2030. Friday’ launch wa a mall tep toward that goal.
China launched a caled-down ver ion of the Long March 10A rocket in February with a prototype of the Mengzhou cap ule to te t the pacecraft’ launch abort y tem, which would trigger to whi k crew member away from a failing rocket. The Mengzhou te t went well, and remarkably, the Long March 10A continued flying after the cap ule fired away from the boo ter, eventually coming back to Earth for a controlled pla hdown at ea. The Long March 10B took thi achievement a tep further with a midair catch.
Multiple commercial and government-backed Chine e rocket companie are trying to level the playing field with the United State . China i the world’ econd-large t pacefaring nation, but US companie , dominated by SpaceX, are launching payload into orbit about twice a often a Chine e rocket . SpaceX’ bli tering launch cadence i made po ible by the partially reu able Falcon 9, omething Blue Origin and Chine e companie are eeking to emulate.
US military official have identified China’ advancement in reu able rocketry a a key to unlocking the country’ ability to potentially threaten US a et in pace. “I’m concerned about when the Chine e figure out how to do reu able lift that allow them to put more capability on orbit at a quicker cadence than currently exi t ,” aid Maj. Gen. Brian Sidari, the Space Force’ deputy chief of pace operation for intelligence, at a conference la t year.
SpaceX ha u ed the Falcon 9’ rapid-fire launch cadence to deploy more than 12,000 atellite for it commercial Starlink Internet network. Starlink ha pawned everal pinoff for the US military, including a ecure communication network called Star hield, a con tellation of py atellite ba ed on the Starlink de ign. More recently, SpaceX ha won contract to provide the Space Force with a new Space Data Network and upport an emerging capability u ing atellite to identify moving target on the ground and in the air.
All of thi would give US force an advantage in any future conflict with China, which i till in the early tage of launching it own ver ion of Starlink. China’ ma tery of rocket reu e would ignificantly expand the country’ launch capacity, accelerating it ability to clo e the gap.
“Clearly, they admire the work that’ being done by SpaceX and are trying to replicate it, and at the ame time take it away from the United State if it ever came to it,” aid Charle Galbreath, a retired US Space Force colonel and director and enior re ident fellow for pace tudie at the Mitchell In titute think tank’ Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence.
“We’ll ee what happen next,” Galbreath told Ar . “Are they able to rapidly turn and increa e their launch rate a a re ult of thi potential reu e? What impact will that have on their ability to field an operational architecture of atellite ?”
Two Chine e rocket companie have already tried to recover their rocket after launching from one of China’ inland paceport . The fir t wa LandSpace, a privately funded firm that debuted it medium-cla Zhuque-3 rocket in December. The rocket reached orbit, but the boo ter cra hed near the landing zone in the Gobi De ert at high peed. A few week later, another one of China’ tate-owned rocket builder ucce fully launched the fir t Long March 12A rocket, but the boo ter again lo t control on de cent and could not be recovered.
The next flight of the Zhuque-3 rocket could happen later thi month or in Augu t, with LandSpace again expected to attempt to land the boo ter downrange. Other Chine e rocket that could oon achieve reu ability include Space Pioneer’ Tianlong-3, China Commercial Rocket Co.’ Long March 12B, CAS Space’ Kinetica-2, i-Space’ Hyperbola-3, and Galactic Energy’ Palla -1. Further into the future, China aim to debut a huge new reu able rocket on the cale of Star hip named the Long March 9.
In the United State , there are SpaceX’ Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Star hip, along with Blue Origin’ New Glenn rocket. Rocket Lab i aiming to launch it fir t medium-lift Neutron rocket with a reu able boo ter by the end of the year. Relativity Space i developing a partially reu able heavy-lifter named Terran R, and Firefly Aero pace i partnering with Northrop Grumman on the Eclip e rocket, which official ay will eventually have a recoverable and reu able fir t tage. Stoke Space ha the bolder ambition of a fully reu able rocket called Nova.
Several European companie al o plan to te t reu able rocket technology, but their vehicle are not a mature a many of the US and Chine e rocket . Rocket builder in India, Japan, and Ru ia have reu e in their roadmap , with varying degree of reali m.
The proliferation of Chine e rocket companie , cattered acro four land-ba ed paceport and multiple ocean-going launch platform , hould et up China to quickly ramp up it launch cadence.
“It probably won’t be but a few year before they’re able to achieve a much higher launch cadence,” Galbreath aid. “They al o have more launch ite than the United State currently, o if you couple their number of ite with reu ability, they could urpa u in term of launch rate, which in and of it elf i more of a pride thing. But it’ the capability that’ being launched a a re ult of that that could actually have a ignificant impact on our competition, and if we got to it, a conflict.
“There’ nothing wrong with competition a long a it’ peaceful,” Galbreath aid. “That can drive innovation, but I’m concerned that the hi toric example of Chine e behavior ha not alway remained peaceful. So, we have to look at everything they do carefully. On the one hand, they’re competing with SpaceX, but we know that becau e of the way China ha organized it military, it pace capabilitie , all under military control, that there i ignificant utility that their armed force will receive from thi race.”
