LandSpace Lands Zhuque-3 Booster in Reusable Rocket Milestone

19 August 2026National

Beijing-based private space startup LandSpace launched its 66-metre Zhuque-3 Y2 rocket on 19 August 2026 and successfully landed its first-stage booster vertically — China's first land recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster. The mission also placed the Honghu-3 commercial internet satellite into its designated orbit. Zhuque-3 is a stainless-steel, liquid-oxygen-and-methane launch vehicle designed to carry up to 14.2 tonnes to low Earth orbit and to be reused up to 20 times. It lifted off at 7:35 a.m. Beijing time from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone in northwest China, with the booster landing about 390 km away in Minqin County, Gansu province, using landing legs. This was China's second orbital booster recovery overall — the first, by state-owned CASC on 10 July 2026, used a sea-based net-capture system for a Long March 10B booster. LandSpace becomes the fourth entity globally to recover an orbital-class booster, after SpaceX and Blue Origin (private) and now CASC (state-owned) domestically. The company is separately seeking to raise 7.5 billion yuan via an IPO on Shanghai's STAR Market.

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SpaceX and Blue Origin were the first two private firms to recover orbital-class boosters | Zhuque-3's maiden flight (Dec 2025) ended in booster failure during descent | Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone is in northwest China

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