By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-08-19 16:14:45 | Updated at 2026-08-19 17:58:00
2 hours ago
BEIJING – China recovered a rocket booster on land for the first time, a major step towards catching up with American companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
A Zhuque-3 rocket successfully landed on its legs in the north-western province of Gansu after helping send a satellite into orbit on Aug 19, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The rocket took off from Jiuquan, one of China’s main space launch centres.
A video clip posted online showed the rocket tapering back on thrust to touch down gently on special legs, which should allow it to be reused.
The breakthrough marks a significant milestone for China’s space programme and the craft’s developer, LandSpace Technology, as reusable rockets can substantially lower the cost of launching satellites into space.
China successfully recovered a rocket in July, but it did so at sea.
“LandSpace’s successful booster recovery with the Zhuque-3 is a watershed moment for China’s commercial space sector,” said Eric Zhu, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Still, China has had its share of setbacks, such as a rocket exploding during launch earlier in August.
The Zhuque-3 is developed by commercial launch provider LandSpace, which applied in 2025 to go public in Shanghai, as it races to catch up to SpaceX and Blue Origin, which is backed by Jeff Bezos.
The company’s past achievements include beating SpaceX in launching a methane-fuelled rocket.
SpaceX has been recovering and recycling the boosters of its Falcon 9 rockets since 2017, helping it grab a near-monopoly in heavy-lift rocket launches and supporting the growth of its thousands of Starlink satellites.
That has spurred a push in China, which is in the early stages of building a similar internet satellite network. That effort has relied on single-use rockets to put satellites into orbit.
LandSpace is one of the leading startups to emerge in the decade since the Chinese government opened the industry to the private sector.
In 2023, it became the first company in the world to launch a rocket fuelled by methane, which has potential to be cleaner and safer than other fuels.
Zhu said LandSpace “now faces the tougher engineering challenge of demonstrating it can rapidly and cost-effectively refurbish and refly that hardware, a process that took SpaceX several years to master”.
China is not the only one chasing SpaceX.
Indian firms are also working towards building reusable rockets, with start-up AgniKul Cosmos preparing for an early 2027 mission aimed at recovering a rocket’s first stage after delivering its payload into orbit. BLOOMBERG
