The successful demonstration of the reusability of the Long March 10B rocket by CASC has significantly changed the competitive landscape for private Chinese startups in the rocket industry. CZ-10B, developed by CASC—the same state-owned enterprise responsible for China's lunar and space station programs—showed that China's state sector is capable of producing a large reusable rocket that can compete with the SpaceX Falcon 9.
For private companies, this raised the question of what competitive advantage they still possess. Over the last decade, Chinese private rocket companies have achieved significant successes: iSpace Hyperbola-1 became the first private rocket to reach orbit; LandSpace Zhuque-2 was the world's first methane and liquid oxygen rocket to reach orbit; and Space Pioneer Tianlong-2 was the first private liquid-fueled rocket in orbit.
However, only LandSpace Zhuque-3 has attempted first-stage recovery, and its attempt in December 2025 ended with an anomaly during landing. Obstacles exist in two aspects. Firstly, payload capacity: CZ-10B delivers about 16 tons to low Earth orbit in reusable mode. Zhuque-3 targets 21 tons in single-use mode and 14 tons in reusable mode. Tianlong-3 aims to deliver 17 tons in reusable mode and 22 tons in single-use mode, but the first flight of Tianlong-3 in 2025 failed, and the vehicle has not yet demonstrated recovery.
Only Zhuque-3 has conducted a recovery attempt, and achieving orbit with recovery remains unattainable for any Chinese private company. Secondly, there is operational reusability: even a successful single recovery does not create a reusable rocket program. Critical indicators include reflight cycles, turnaround time, and the cost per flight after multiple uses.
As the leading reusable rocket sets standards for cost and capability, alternative approaches—such as discontinuing the operation of Space Launch Delta IV Heavy due to uncompetitiveness against Falcon 9 pricing, MadeInSpace Curiosity's focus on solid-fuel rockets, or Orbis' pursuit of orbital servicing—underscore the complexity of competition. Nevertheless, private Chinese rockets can find their niche. LandSpace's methane engine technology surpasses all others except SpaceX Raptor in flight operational experience. Space Pioneer's stainless steel construction for Tianlong-3 allows for reduced costs and increased thermal cycle count compared to aluminum-lithium alloys. Furthermore, JianYuan Technology's approach to recovery using a 'pole' at sea could potentially provide faster turnaround times than net-based recovery.
If private companies can achieve five or more launches with lower infrastructure costs than CZ-10B's sea operations, they can offer differentiated launch services. The growth of satellite internet constellations creates short-term demand that may be large enough for several players. However, private companies must quickly transition from the development stage to the operational stage. The era of demonstrating individual capabilities is ending; the era of reliable and cost-effective launch services is beginning. Private rockets that achieve operational reusability within the next 18 months will secure a place in the constellation market. Those remaining in development by 2028 will face increasingly fierce competition from state-owned reusable rockets and direct SpaceX services.
The successful recovery of the first Long March 10B rocket flight on July 10 marked a turning point for China's commercial space industry. However, the industry faces a significant challenge: demonstrating the capability for rapid, reliable, and cost-effective reuse of recovered boosters.
In contrast to SpaceX Falcon 9, which did not recover on its first flight, and New Glenn, which only managed recovery on its second attempt, the CZ-10B achieved the world's first successful flight followed by recovery on a sea platform located 431 kilometers from Wenchang, at an altitude of 144 meters.
Chinese commercial rocket companies are actively working towards achieving reflight goals. The company LandSpace Zhuque-3 is developing a stainless steel rocket with a liquid-fuel engine running on oxygen and methane, utilizing a landing gear recovery system similar to Falcon 9. After the first attempt in December 2025 ended with an anomaly during final descent, Zhuque-3 Y2 passed static fire tests on June 29. Success in this area will allow China to become the first nation to demonstrate both pure recovery and recovery using landing legs.
Another approach is implemented by JianYuan Technology YX-1, which uses a mechanical manipulator capture method on a sea platform, similar to a 'pole' method. This method combines the fast cycle advantages inherent in Starship tower captures with the safety and flexibility of marine operations. In May 2025, YX-1 successfully demonstrated a controlled water landing, after which the recovered engine underwent four engine-firing tests, confirming the 'flight-descent-recovery-reignition' chain.
The economic viability of each method differs. Pure recovery allows for the elimination of complex sea platforms in favor of lighter rockets without the extra weight of landing gear. The 'pole' capture provides the fastest cycle, potentially taking hours instead of days. Landing legs have been proven, but they reduce payload capacity. All three approaches face the same fundamental problem—proving the possibility of multiple uses.
SpaceX has demonstrated over 600 landings and 602 Falcon 9 reflights. Collectively, all Chinese programs have only one instance of recovery. Industry analysts note that the economics of reuse become favorable after the fifth launch, but achieving ten or more launches requires solving issues related to engine life, thermal protection, structural fatigue, and corrosion from marine operations. The CZ-10B design targets over 10 reflights with a 72-hour cycle time.
Blue Origin's recent experience with New Glenn, where the second-flight booster delivered a payload to the wrong orbit, and the subsequent explosion in the test stand destroyed the sole launch pad, serves as a warning about the gap between engineering demonstration and operational reliability. The market reacted immediately: on the day of the CZ-10B recovery, 25 aerospace stocks reached daily limits on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, and the China Aerospace ETF rose by 5.74%, with trading volume exceeding the 20-day average by threefold. The technology verification phase for China's reusable rockets is complete; the commercial testing phase has begun.
Unlike SpaceX's use of 'stick' levers to catch the Starship, China's Long March 10B rocket recovery system employs a flexible capture method, which provides greater error tolerance and gentler handling of the booster.
The Long March 10B rocket recovery technology represents a fundamentally different engineering approach compared to SpaceX's lever capture. The CZ-10B, which conducted the world's first sea recovery using a net on July 10, utilizes a flexible capture method that industry analysts characterize as a soft landing, in contrast to SpaceX's hard landing.
The recovery system deploys a taut net aboard the vessel Navigator, made of high-strength specialized fibers and steel cables arranged in a specific pattern. When the descending booster enters this net, kinetic energy is absorbed through the stretching of the cables, the movement of blocks, and hydraulic dampers. This system can compensate for positional errors during landing up to 10 meters, whereas lever capture requires millimeter precision.
Conversely, SpaceX's Starship recovery system uses rigid mechanical manipulators that envelop the booster. This process requires mounting pins on the rocket to precisely align with receiving slots on the manipulators. This rigid contact approach demands extreme positioning accuracy and creates high localized loads at the pin contact points. The advantage of this method is that the booster can be returned to the launch pad within a few hours for rapid reuse.
China's approach replaces heavy landing legs with light hook mechanisms installed on an intermediate section of the rocket. The absence of excess weight from landing gear allows for a larger safety margin for protecting and reusing the booster. Furthermore, net capture distributes impact forces more evenly across the rocket structure. Although net recovery requires moving from the ship's crane to shore, the gentler capture process potentially allows for more reuse cycles per booster.
The Navigator vessel itself is designed for this task. It has a length of 144 meters and a displacement of 25,000 tons, and its DP2 dynamic positioning system allows it to maintain position within 0.5 meters in waves up to 4 meters high. The net structure includes intelligent damping systems with blocks and hydraulic absorbers that limit impact load to 3G. The 54x54 meter capture zone provides a significant margin for the descending booster.
China is simultaneously developing both the net recovery system and the lever capture. The LandSpace Zhuque-3 rocket follows a landing leg approach similar to Falcon 9, while the development of the CAS Space rocket targets future lever capture. If Zhuque-3 successfully completes its upcoming recovery attempt, China will become the first nation to demonstrate two different reusable rocket technologies, ensuring diversification of risk reduction for the national space program and satellite constellation deployment.
China succeeded in testing an experimental rocket recovery system last Friday (10). The Long March 10B rocket was launched from the commercial space launch center located in Hainan, in the south of the country, at 1:15 AM Brasília time.
About six minutes after the propellant separated from the upper stage, the first stage returned vertically and was successfully recovered on a maritime platform, according to state broadcaster CCTV. With this achievement, the Chinese have reached a capability that is already the domain of American companies, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin: the ability to return the rocket to its starting point.
Beijing's purpose is to destabilize US supremacy in the reusable rocket segment. However, the method employed by China differs from that used by Americans. Unlike autonomously landing on solid ground with extendable legs or on a drone ship, the Long March 10B uses landing hooks that capture a net attached to a maritime platform.
This test represents the first successful recovery of an orbital-class propellant by China, consolidating nearly a decade of research and development in reuse technologies. Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the event as a 'historic day for China's space program.' This technical advance preserves the most valuable part of the rocket—the engine-containing propellant—which results in a drastic reduction in orbital operational costs.
For comparison, SpaceX launches the Falcon 9 approximately 150 times annually, reusing its propellants dozens of times. The Long March 10B, capable of carrying a minimum of 16 metric tons of payload to low Earth orbit, was designed for the commercial market by the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the country's main state rocket agency. This reuse technology is expected to decrease expenses for launching Chinese commercial satellite constellations.
China's goals are even broader: the Long March 10 line is being planned to conduct crewed missions to the Moon before 2030. In this context, the experimental model will serve to collect vital data and validate the necessary technologies for the lunar program. CCTV also reported that the country intends to reuse this same propulsion stage in another launch by the end of 2026.
