Zhuque-3 booster lands in Chinese first, Xinhua says

Chinese startup LandSpace recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket on land on Wednesday morning, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, describing the landing as a first for China and a breakthrough in reusable spacecraft technology.

Xinhua said the rocket lifted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone in northwestern China at 7:35 a.m. on Wednesday, and that its first stage later “touched down smoothly”. State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of the booster descending onto a desert landing site and deploying legs.

The rocket’s second stage sent the Honghu-03 satellite into orbit, Xinhua said, calling the mission “a complete success”.

Space experts said LandSpace was the first company outside the United States to land an orbital-class booster “on its own legs”. Richard de Grijs, an astrophysicist and professor at Australia’s Macquarie University, called the landing “a major milestone for China’s commercial space sector”.

The achievement came about a month after the recovery of the first stage of China’s state-developed Long March-10B carrier rocket from a seaborne platform in July. De Grijs said China had now demonstrated two different recovery methods through its state-owned and commercial space sectors, which could help develop cheaper and more frequent launch capacity for planned satellite mega-constellations.

Xinhua said the Zhuque-3 has been approved by the China National Space Administration and designed for low-cost, high-capacity and high-frequency launches.