China has gained pace in the space race by recovering rockets – but can it relaunch one?
As technological developments augur an era of renewed space exploration, China is aiming to become a major player. In the second part of this two-part series, Wency Chen and Ben Jiang examine the country’s strategy and progress on reusable rockets – a field where the US has a tremendous lead. US commercial space firm SpaceX has been eager to tout its deployment of reusable first-stage rocket…
China’s space program is rapidly gaining momentum, as the country aims to become a major player in the global space race. However, the nation still lags behind the United States in the development of reusable rockets, a critical technology that could significantly reduce launch costs and enable large-scale commercial space exploration.
While SpaceX has deployed over 600 reusable first-stage rocket boosters, China has yet to successfully recover a rocket from a mission. In July, the Chinese private aerospace company LandSpace achieved the first successful ground-based controlled recovery using landing legs, a method similar to that employed by SpaceX's Falcon 9. This milestone highlights the country's progress in overcoming a key challenge in reusability.
LandSpace's Zhuque-3 rocket booster, which recovered last month, accounts for around 70% of the rocket's total cost. Reusing the first-stage booster can substantially lower launch expenses, making it an attractive proposition for commercial space ventures. The cost per kilogram of payload for Chinese launch services can reach up to $20,000, compared to $2,700 to $3,000 for SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9.
China is exploring various approaches to booster recovery, including recovery using parachutes or wings for a controlled descent, landing leg recovery with engines controlling the vehicle's descent, and an offshore net-capture system. The latter involves a recovery vessel catching the descending booster, which could offer advantages such as less demanding landing-point accuracy and flexible deployment of the offshore recovery platform.
Despite these advancements, China still faces significant challenges in ensuring the safety and reliability of reusability. The country is still developing technical frameworks for rocket reuse standards, inspection procedures, and rules governing component replacement. A complete post-recovery processing cycle is necessary to ensure that a recovered rocket can safely re-enter space and survive multiple launches.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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