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China launches reusable rocket, second stage enters planned orbit, while first stage recovery test fails

Global Times

By Deng Xiaoci and Tao Mingyang Published: Dec 03, 2025 02:18 PM

China launched a reusable carrier rocket on Wednesday from northwest China. The second stage of this rocket managed to enter the designated orbit, but recovery of its first stage failed, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

The Zhuque-3 rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone.

Its first-stage booster suffered anomalous combustion during recovery, failing to achieve a soft touchdown on the landing pad. The recovery test was unsuccessful, and the specific cause is under investigation.

Zhuque-3 is a liquid oxygen-methane-powered rocket engineered for low cost, high capacity and frequent launches, according to LandSpace, its designer.

The impressive mission proves the reliability of the launch services and could gather valuable data for future landing experiment, space industry observers said on Wednesday.

The mission is a milestone for Chinese spaceflight, marking the country's first attempt at recovering a stage from an orbital launch. The mission indicates China is close to obtaining a key capability for lowering launch costs and enabling rapid commercial cadence, according to a report published on SpaceNews, a US-based outlet covering the global space industry.

The successful flight could pave the way for commercial firm Landspace to begin launching batches of satellites for China's megaconstellation projects, while also providing valuable data and experience for future recovery attempts, read the report.

The development team vowed Wednesday to promptly conduct a comprehensive review and technical close-out of this test process, close-out thoroughly identify the root cause of the fault, continuously optimize the recovery solution, and continue advancing reusable verification in follow-up missions.

The two-stage ZQ-3 features a 4.5-meter-diameter core for both stages, a 5.2-meter fairing, stands 66.1 meters tall, and has a liftoff mass of approximately 570 tons with more than 750 tons of thrust. The company positions the rocket as a high-payload, low-cost, reusable solution to meet the growing demand for mega-constellation launches, according to the commercial firm.

From a technical perspective, the core challenge of a reusable rocket lies in one rocket, two missions - delivering the payload precisely into the designated orbit while simultaneously achieving safe recovery of the first stage. This demands not only mature theoretical foundations but also places extraordinarily high requirements on engineering implementation, Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Notably, the successful orbital insertion of the second stage has effectively validated the reliability of LandSpace's in-house developed engines, propulsion systems, and other core components. Although the recovery phase did not succeed as planned, the far greater value lies in the complete dataset collected during the attempt, said the expert.

Was attitude control maintained normally throughout the recovery sequence? Did loss of control occur from the beginning, or was the process stable until the final critical moments? Which technical elements met expectations, and which revealed deficiencies? What was the root cause of the failure? Answering these questions requires LandSpace to conduct a meticulous, frame-by-frame dissection of the entire recovery process, distill lessons learned and recurring issues, and use them to support optimization and improvement in subsequent tests - thereby accelerating technical iteration and increasing the probability of success, Wang noted.

Globally, only a handful of US companies have mastered this breakthrough to date, which underscores both the cutting-edge nature and the formidable difficulty of China's private space sector venturing into this domain, some space industry observers noted.

Global Times reporters found that even SpaceX's flagship reusable launch vehicle, the Falcon 9, experienced numerous failures before its first successful landing.

Similarly, the Falcon 9 succeeded in sending its payload into orbit but failed in its first stage recovery on September 29, 2013 in Flight 6, which was the very first failed attempt by the model.

China next

Represented by the ZQ-3, China's reusable rockets are gaining worldwide attention.

Elon Musk, CEO of US private space firm SpaceX, said in October that several Chinese reusable carrier rockets have added aspects of Starship to a Falcon 9 architecture, which would enable it to beat SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

Musk made the comment in a social media post containing a video clip that showed the fueling rehearsal and static ignition test of the ZQ-3 reusable rocket conducted from October 18 to 20 at the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone.

The post on which Musk commented also mentioned two other Chinese reusable carrier rockets: the CZ-12A developed by CASC and Tianlong-3 developed by Space Pioneer, adding that "20+ more rocket companies are building launch sites!"

"They have added aspects of Starship, such as use of stainless steel and methalox, to a Falcon 9 architecture, which would enable it to beat Falcon 9," Musk commented, while noting that Starship is in "another league."

"It's very impressive that ZQ-3 reached orbit on the first attempt, following a relatively short development timeline. The reentry of the first stage and the required multiple engine restarts are big challenges, but this appears to be a positive first attempt at a vertical recovery despite the anomaly and combustion of the first stage," Andrew Jones, a Finland-based space journalist, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"I think this is one of those things that are so challenging that you have to try and then learn from whatever goes wrong," he added. "Reaching orbit is the main thing. It's a success."