Private Chinese rocket lands booster after delivering satellite to orbit

LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 has completed an orbital mission while bringing its first stage back to a controlled vertical landing on land. The privately developed Chinese rocket deployed the Honghu-03 satellite into its planned orbit, then descended to a desert recovery area and touched down on retractable landing legs. It is the first private Chinese orbital-class booster to achieve that kind of land recovery after launch.

The landing came on Zhuque-3’s second attempt. On its first orbital flight in December 2025, the upper stage reached the intended orbit, but the booster failed to make a soft landing and broke apart near the landing zone. China had also recovered a state-developed Long March-10B first stage in July, using a net on a platform at sea rather than a powered touchdown on land.

Recovering the first stage is technically demanding because it provides the initial thrust and contains some of the rocket’s most expensive hardware. If boosters can be inspected and flown again, the approach could make launches cheaper and more frequent. The successful landing is an important engineering demonstration, but actual reusability remains to be proven on future missions.