The rocket launched on December 3, 2025, and successfully reached orbit. ZhuQue-3 is a two-stage rocket capable of carrying just over 18 tons if the first stage is recovered (the figure is slightly higher if no recovery is attempted).
We’re sure any similarities to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 are purely coincidental. Nine Tianque-12A engines power the ZhuQue-3’s first stage, and the plan is to land the booster vertically. Each booster should be good for at least 20 reuses, making it useful for building a satellite constellation (and the payload means enough satellites can be carried on a single launch).
A lot of stainless steel was also used in the construction of the rocket. SpaceX’s starship is famously made from this stuff.
The mission itself went well. The first and second stages separated successfully, the fairing was discarded and the second stage flew out before the Tianque-15A vacuum engine was restarted. The first stage should have returned after the stage separation to make a soft landing, but it didn’t quite turn out that way.
During the landing phase, the first stage experienced “a post-ignition anomaly”. The result was one fireball causing debris to land on the edge of the recovery pad, demonstrating how close the LandSpace team had come to completing the landing after the first orbital launch.
Reusable rockets are all the rage after SpaceX’s demonstration that the technology could work and the rapid deployment of the Starlink constellation. Blue Origin’s first phase New Glenn landed successfully for the first time in November, and the first model of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) reusable rocket demonstrator, Themis, was built on its Swedish launch pad in September.
The successful launch and near-landing (well, it landed, just not as engineers had hoped) of ZhuQue-3, as well as the activities of other rocket equipment, indicate that SpaceX could soon face competition in reusability, both at home and abroad. ®
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