Zhuque-3 is a partially reusable two-stage launch vehicle developed by the Chinese company LandSpace. The rocket is 66.1 meters tall and 4.5 meters in diameter, is built from stainless steel, and burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen in nine TQ-12A first-stage engines and a single vacuum-optimized TQ-15A on the second stage.[1][2][4] The first stage lands on four legs and is designed to fly up to 20 times; an expendable Zhuque-3 can carry 14,200 kilograms to low Earth orbit.[4][5]

On its second flight, on August 19, 2026, Zhuque-3 placed the Honghu-03 satellite into orbit and landed its first stage about 390 kilometers downrange in Minqin County, Gansu province.[2][3] It was China's first recovery of an orbital-class booster on land, the first by a Chinese commercial company, and only the country's second overall, following the Long March 10B stage caught in a net on a sea platform on July 10, 2026.[2][3][9] LandSpace became the third organization to land an orbital-class booster on legs, after SpaceX and Blue Origin.[2]

Zhuque-3's first flight, on December 3, 2025, reached orbit, but the booster was destroyed by unstable combustion during the final landing burn.[7][8] LandSpace plans to fly the recovered second-flight booster again within six months and has applied to raise 7.5 billion yuan, about 1 billion dollars, on the Shanghai stock exchange to expand Zhuque-3 production.[6][14]

Status as of August 2026

As of August 22, Zhuque-3 has flown twice and landed its first stage once. The second flight lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone at 07:35 Beijing time on August 19 (2335 UTC on August 18), placed the Honghu-03 satellite into its designated orbit, and set the booster down on its legs roughly eight minutes after launch, about 390 kilometers downrange in Minqin County, Gansu province.[1][2][3] LandSpace declared the mission a complete success, although video showed a fire in the stage's aft section after touchdown.[1][3][6] A company representative told the Chinese financial outlet STAR Market Daily that LandSpace intends to refly the recovered booster within six months.[6] The company is meanwhile pursuing a 7.5 billion yuan listing on Shanghai's STAR Market; the exchange accepted its application on December 31, 2025.[14] The state-owned CASC is meanwhile preparing to refly the Long March 10B stage it recovered at sea in July.[9]

Development

LandSpace was founded in 2015.[3] Its smaller Zhuque-2 became the first methane and liquid oxygen rocket anywhere to reach orbit, on July 12, 2023.[13] The company announced the stainless steel Zhuque-3 in November 2023 as its entry into reusable launch.[10]

Two hop tests preceded the orbital vehicle. On January 19, 2024, the single-engine VTVL-1 test article flew to about 350 meters over the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in a roughly 60 second flight and set down with an accuracy LandSpace gave as about 2.4 meters.[10] On September 11, 2024, the same test program reached 10,002 meters in a 200 second flight that included an in-flight engine shutdown and reignition, then landed on a pad 3.2 kilometers away.[11]

After the December 2025 orbital debut ended with the booster destroyed on landing, LandSpace targeted the second quarter of 2026 for the next attempt and reuse of a recovered stage in the fourth quarter.[8] The schedule slipped: the Y2 vehicle completed a static-fire test at the Dongfeng zone on June 29, 2026, according to the company, and flew on August 19.[2][12]

Financing has scaled with the program. LandSpace's application for a STAR Market listing, accepted on December 31, 2025, seeks about 7.5 billion yuan. Around 2.77 billion yuan is earmarked for production capacity, including final assembly and engine plants in Wuxi, Jiaxing, Huzhou, and Beijing sized for 20 Zhuque-3 rockets a year, and about 4.73 billion yuan for technology work that includes a 220-ton-class full-flow staged-combustion methalox engine.[14]

Design and specifications

Zhuque-3 is a two-stage rocket with both stages 4.5 meters in diameter under a 5.2 meter fairing, according to figures the company released around the second flight.[1][2] The structure is stainless steel, the material SpaceX chose for Starship, while the vehicle's size and nine-engine first stage sit closer to Falcon 9.[3][5] LandSpace argues that stainless steel is cheaper to build with and tolerates reentry heating better than the aluminum alloys used on Falcon 9.[5]

The nine first-stage TQ-12A engines are 80-tonne-class methalox units,[11] and LandSpace says their thrust can be throttled between 40 and 110 percent of rated power.[1] The second stage uses a single vacuum-optimized TQ-15A burning the same propellants.[4] The company says propellant makes up 1 to 3 percent of a launch's cost while the first stage accounts for about 70 percent of the rocket's cost, the arithmetic behind reusable rockets generally (see how rockets work for why propellant is the cheap part).[1]

ParameterZhuque-3
Height66.1 m
Diameter4.5 m, both stages
Fairing diameter5.2 m
First-stage engines9 TQ-12A, liquid methane and liquid oxygen
Second-stage engine1 TQ-15A, vacuum optimized
Payload to low Earth orbit, expended14,200 kg
Payload to low Earth orbit, downrange landingAbout 8,000 kg
Booster recoveryFour landing legs; designed for up to 20 flights

LandSpace's published design figures for the type are higher than the current version delivers: 21,300 kilograms to low Earth orbit expended, 18,300 kilograms with a downrange landing, and 12,500 kilograms when the booster returns to the launch site.[8] Reaching them depends on an upgraded version, Zhuque-3E, which swaps in TQ-12B and TQ-15B engines and stretches the vehicle to about 76 meters; the version flying in 2026 is limited to roughly 8,000 kilograms with a downrange recovery.[4]

Flight history

Zhuque-3 has launched twice from LandSpace's pad at the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone, a commercial launch area within the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Both flights reached orbit; the first landing attempt failed and the second succeeded.[2][7]

FlightDatePayloadOrbital resultBooster result
Y1December 3, 2025Mass simulatorPlanned orbit reachedDestroyed during the landing burn
Y2August 19, 2026Honghu-03Designated orbit reachedLanded 390 km downrange

Y1 lifted off at 0402 UTC on December 3, 2025, carrying a mass simulator rather than a customer satellite, and its second stage entered the planned low Earth orbit.[7] The first stage descended toward a landing pad about 390 kilometers downrange and completed its glide, grid fin deployment, and reentry burn as planned, but combustion turned abnormal during the final landing burn. The stage caught fire, crashed about 40 meters from the aim point, and was destroyed.[7][8]

Y2 lifted off at 07:35 Beijing time on August 19, 2026 (2335 UTC on August 18). The stages separated about 137 seconds into flight, and the single TQ-15A second stage carried Honghu-03, a prototype internet satellite built by the LandSpace-affiliated Hongqing Technology, into its designated orbit.[1][2][3] The booster reoriented, performed its reentry burn, and touched down vertically on four legs almost eight minutes after liftoff.[3][4] For the landing burn the stage lit one engine and then four more, slowed on five, stepped down to three, and settled onto its center engine near the middle of the pad.[4] LandSpace said the changes made after Y1 included fewer engines in the landing burn, a predicted-landing-point function added to the autonomous flight safety system, and improved thermal protection.[2] Video from the site showed a fire in the aft section of the stage after touchdown; LandSpace nevertheless described the mission as a full success, and Dai Zheng, the rocket's chief commander, told Xinhua the stage was still supersonic at low altitude with a single chance to land.[1][3][6]

Landing and reuse

The landing zone in Minqin County, Gansu province, sits roughly 390 kilometers downrange from the Jiuquan launch area, so Zhuque-3 flights recover the booster along the flight path rather than back at the pad, the same basic geometry as a Falcon 9 drone ship landing but on desert ground.[2][6] After the Y2 touchdown, LandSpace began inspecting the recovered stage and said it would move from validating recovery technology to validating operational reuse; the reflight the company is targeting within six months would close its first launch, recovery, inspection, and relaunch cycle.[1][6]

Zhuque-3's recovery was the second of two Chinese booster recoveries within six weeks, and the two came from different parts of the country's space sector. The Long March 10B that caught its stage in a shipboard net on July 10, 2026 was built by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the state contractor behind most of the rockets flown for CNSA and the crewed program, while Zhuque-3 belongs to a venture-funded company that must recover its costs commercially.[9][14] The leg landing put LandSpace in a group that previously held only SpaceX, which first landed a Falcon 9 booster in December 2015,[17] and Blue Origin, whose New Glenn booster first landed in November 2025.[2][18]

Future missions

LandSpace's nearest-term goal for Zhuque-3 is the reflight of the recovered Y2 booster within six months of the August 2026 landing.[6] Farther out, the rocket has two anchor applications beyond ordinary satellite delivery.

The first is station cargo. Haolong, a reusable cargo spaceplane about 10 meters long and around 7,000 kilograms, developed by the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute under the state-owned aviation group AVIC, was selected under China's program for low-cost commercial resupply of the Tiangong station and is slated to launch on Zhuque-3.[15]

The second is constellation building. Hongqing Technology, the satellite affiliate in which LandSpace holds a 48 percent stake, filed with the International Telecommunication Union in 2024 for the Honghu-3 constellation of 10,000 satellites across 160 orbital planes, and the Honghu-03 satellite that Y2 delivered is a prototype for that internet system.[2][16] LandSpace's planned production capacity, once the plants funded by its share listing are complete, is 20 Zhuque-3 rockets a year.[14]

References

  1. China Focus: China launches Zhuque-3, achieving its first rocket recovery on land - Xinhua, August 19, 2026.
  2. China's Landspace recovers booster with second orbital launch of Zhuque-3 rocket - SpaceNews, August 2026.
  3. LandSpace becomes first commercial Chinese company to land an orbital-class booster - Spaceflight Now, August 19, 2026.
  4. Zhuque-3 Completes Second Flight with Successful First-Stage Landing - NASASpaceflight, August 2026.
  5. China successfully lands its Zhuque-3 rocket, rivaling Blue Origin and SpaceX - Scientific American, August 2026.
  6. Landspace aims to refly recovered Zhuque-3 booster within six months - SpaceNews, August 2026.
  7. Zhuque-3 reaches orbit on test flight, first stage lost during landing attempt - SpaceNews, December 2025.
  8. Landspace targets Q2 for next Zhuque-3 orbital launch and recovery attempt - SpaceNews, February 18, 2026.
  9. China becomes second country to recover orbital booster with Long March 10B - SpaceNews, July 10, 2026.
  10. China's Landspace conducts first VTVL test for reusable stainless steel rocket - SpaceNews, January 2024.
  11. Landspace completes 10-kilometer reusable rocket test, eyes 2025 orbital launch - SpaceNews, September 2024.
  12. China's Zhuque-3 reusable rocket completes static fire test - Global Times, June 2026.
  13. Zhuque-2 Y2 launch successfully enters orbit - LandSpace, July 13, 2023.
  14. Landspace targets $1 billion for reusable rockets as IPO application accepted - SpaceNews.
  15. China to launch 2 new space station cargo spacecraft on commercial rockets in 2025 - SpaceNews.
  16. Chinese firm files plans for 10,000-satellite constellation - SpaceNews, June 2024.
  17. Falcon 9 Launches Orbcomm Satellites, Lands First Stage - SpaceNews, December 22, 2015.
  18. Blue Origin launches twin Mars probes for NASA as New Glenn makes first landing - Spaceflight Now, November 13, 2025.