Chinese Startup’s Reusable Rocket Booster Crashes in Orbital Test
A Chinese private space company launched its first partially reusable orbital rocket, achieving orbit but failing to recover the booster stage in a hard landing. The incident underscores the engineering hurdles in mastering vertical rocket recovery amid Beijing’s push to rival U.S. commercial spaceflight dominance. LandSpace Technology’s test flight marks a milestone for China’s nascent private sector, even as the setback delays cost-saving reusability goals.
The Zhuque-3 rocket lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone in northwest China’s Alxa League at 3:30 a.m. Beijing time on December 3. Standing 66 meters tall, the methane-fueled vehicle carried a simulated payload equivalent to 18 satellites into low Earth orbit within eight minutes. Nine first-stage engines ignited successfully, propelling the stack to a velocity of 7.8 kilometers per second before separation.
Recovery efforts faltered during the booster’s descent. An “abnormal burn” in the methalox engines prevented precise thrust vectoring, causing the 53-meter stage to miss the landing pad by several kilometers. Telemetry data showed the booster impacting the Gobi Desert surface at over 100 meters per second, disintegrating on contact and generating a dust plume visible from ground cameras.
LandSpace engineers captured 1.2 terabytes of flight data, including vibration spectra and thermal profiles from the composite airframe. The company’s reusable design incorporates grid fins for aerodynamic control and landing legs with crushable honeycomb absorbers, drawing from iterative suborbital hops conducted since 2023. Pre-flight simulations predicted a 78 percent success probability for vertical touchdown.
China’s commercial space industry, valued at 1.4 trillion yuan in 2025, relies on single-use rockets for 92 percent of launches. State-owned entities like the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation dominate with Long March variants, but private firms now handle 28 percent of missions. The Zhuque-3 aims for 20 reuses per booster, targeting a per-kilogram-to-orbit cost of 3,500 yuan, half that of expendable competitors.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has executed 380 successful recoveries since 2015, enabling 300-plus orbital flights annually and supporting the Starlink constellation of 6,000 satellites. Blue Origin achieved its first New Shepard suborbital landing in 2021, but orbital progress lags. LandSpace’s near-miss positions it ahead of domestic peers like iSpace’s Hyperbola-3 and Galactic Energy’s Pallas-1, both slated for 2026 debuts.
U.S. Space Force Brig. Gen. Brian Sidari warned in September that reusable Chinese launchers could accelerate orbital deployments, stating, “I’m concerned about when the Chinese figure out how to do reusable lift that allows them to put more capability on orbit at a quicker pace.” Beijing’s 14th Five-Year Plan allocates 200 billion yuan to commercial aerospace, funding test sites and supply chains for cryogenic propellants.
LandSpace, founded in 2015 with 450 employees, raised 1.5 billion yuan in Series C funding last year from investors including Temasek Holdings. The firm pioneered methane-liquid oxygen propulsion in 2023 with Zhuque-2, completing four orbital missions. CEO Zhang Changwu emphasized post-flight analysis: “The mission captured critical engineering data under real flight conditions, laying an essential foundation for future model optimization.”
Broader implications ripple through global satellite markets. China’s Guowang megaconstellation targets 13,000 low-Earth orbit assets by 2030, demanding 150 annual launches. Reusability could slash costs by 40 percent, pressuring U.S. incumbents and elevating geopolitical tensions over space traffic management. The International Telecommunication Union reports 15 percent orbital slot congestion in 2025, with disputes over interference rising 22 percent year-over-year.
Competitors intensify the race. Space Pioneer’s Tianlong-3, a kerosene-based reusable, undergoes hot-fire tests at Haiyang port, aiming for Q2 2026 maiden flight. Deep Blue Aerospace’s Nebula-1 achieved a 2024 hopper landing, validating autonomous guidance algorithms. LandSpace plans Zhuque-3 iterations with redundant avionics and carbon-fiber overwrapped pressure vessels for enhanced margins.
Regulatory frameworks evolve in response. China’s Civil Aviation Administration mandates third-party audits for reusable certifications, mirroring FAA standards. U.S. export controls under the Commerce Department’s Entity List restrict dual-use avionics to Chinese firms, citing national security. The setback delays LandSpace’s commercial manifest, including contracts for 12 Geely Auto satellites and Asia Broadcast Satellite payloads.
Engineers attribute the anomaly to a transient in the flight termination system, triggering premature engine cutoff at 480 seconds post-separation. Ground teams recovered debris fragments within a 5-kilometer radius, analyzing char patterns for reentry heating insights. Future tests incorporate laser-based altimetry for sub-10-meter precision landings.
The episode highlights supply chain strains in China’s aerospace ecosystem. Domestic production of high-thrust turbopumps lags by 15 percent in yield rates compared to Aerojet Rocketdyne benchmarks. Investments in additive manufacturing for nozzle throats aim to bridge gaps, with Shanghai Spaceflight Startup Park hosting 120 firms.
As reusability matures, economic models project a 350 billion yuan market by 2030, capturing 35 percent of global launches. For U.S. audiences, the test signals intensifying competition in the 500 billion dollar space economy, where cost efficiencies could reshape defense satellite constellations and broadband access disparities. LandSpace’s persistence exemplifies the high-risk trajectory of frontier hardware innovation.
