LandSpace's Zhuque-3 Booster Makes China's First Commercial Rocket Landing

A rocket booster built by the Chinese company LandSpace returned from orbit and landed upright on August 19, marking the first vertical booster landing in Chinese commercial spaceflight history. The booster belongs to the Zhuque-3 rocket, whose missions are commanded by Dai Zheng, a former state space-programme engineer who joined LandSpace as deputy general manager in 2016.

The successful landing followed an eight-month recovery effort after an earlier attempt crashed in December. Reusability, recovering and reflying parts of a rocket, allows launch costs to be spread across multiple missions, and LandSpace's leadership has described it as central to supporting China's plans for large satellite constellations in low-Earth orbit.

Dai had spent his career since 2009 in rocket research and development at the state-owned China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, where he was among the lead architects of the Long March 5, China's first heavy-lift rocket, before leaving to join the then one-year-old LandSpace. The company's first rocket, Zhuque-1, failed to reach orbit on its maiden launch in October 2018. LandSpace subsequently built its own liquid-propulsion system, and in July 2023, its Zhuque-2 rocket, powered by self-developed Tianque liquid-oxygen-methane engines, became the world's first methane-fuelled rocket to reach orbit.

The larger Zhuque-3 uses stainless steel rather than aluminium alloys for its main body, a design choice similar to SpaceX's Starship. Stainless steel is heavier but withstands re-entry heat better, reducing the thermal shielding needed and simplifying refurbishment between flights. LandSpace now faces the task of turning the single successful booster recovery into routine, repeated reuse.