China’s state-owned space company successfully launched a Long March orbital rocket and landed the booster on an offshore recovery vessel, becoming the second country to achieve the feat.
Friday’s demonstration shows that the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is prepared to match the breakthrough that catapulted SpaceX to the top: reusing the same propellant over and over again to reduce the cost of launching spacecraft. CASC said it would try to reuse the booster, which can carry as much payload as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 workhorse, by the end of the year.
Instead of deploying landing legs to land on a floating platform, as the Falcon 9 does, China’s approach uses nets strung over a large frame aboard a recovery ship to capture the descending rocket. However, the ability to return the rocket to the ship in controlled flight depends on sophisticated sensors and guidance software, along with engines that are reliable enough to restart and rugged enough to survive the descent through the atmosphere.
SpaceX is currently breaking launch records annually with its fleet of reusable Falcon 9 rocket boosters. The vehicle supports the company’s Starlink satellite network, which depends on regular and affordable access to space, as well as its work for NASA and the US Space Force.
China would not compete directly with Musk’s company for launch customers because of national security rules that effectively divide the global rocket market between the United States and Europe, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other. However, a reusable rocket would allow China’s satellite communications networks and hypothetical orbital data centers to compete with SpaceX’s offerings.
That would mean more competition for Starlink in global markets, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. For the US military, it would mean a reduced advantage in space. The recovery of momentum from the Long March comes days after a consortium of investigative journalists reported New documents showing China and Russia are cooperating in ways to harm Starlink because of its successes in Ukraine.
Unless SpaceX can successfully fly its much larger Starship rocket. The last attempt to launch the rocket ended with mixed results at best, but Musk’s new public conglomerate is expected to make another attempt this month. A static fire test of the massive booster appeared to go off without a hitch today.
The United States has other companies trying to develop reusable rockets, notably Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which recovered a booster in 2025 and I reused it earlier this year. Blue Origin saw one of its rockets explode on the launch pad in May, delaying any new attempts for now. Rocket Lab has been working on Neutron, which is intended to fly with a reusable booster, while Liven up the space is developing a fully reusable rocket that it hopes to test this year.
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