{"id":164991,"date":"2025-12-03T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/164991\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:00:09","slug":"this-chinese-company-could-become-the-countrys-first-to-land-a-reusable-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/164991\/","title":{"rendered":"This Chinese company could become the country\u2019s first to land a reusable rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s no Falcon 9<\/p>\n

The Chinese companies that master reusable rocketry first will have an advantage in the Chinese launch industry. A handful of rockets appear to be poised to take this advantage, beginning with LandSpace\u2019s Zhuque-3.<\/p>\n

In its first iteration, the Zhuque-3 rocket will be capable of placing a payload of up to 17,600 pounds (8 metric tons) into low-Earth orbit after accounting for the fuel reserves required for booster recovery. The entire rocket stands about 216 feet (65.9 meters) tall.<\/p>\n

The first stage has nine TQ-12A engines consuming methane and liquid oxygen, producing more than 1.6 million pounds of thrust at full throttle. The second stage is powered by a single methane-fueled TQ-15A engine with about 200,000 pounds of thrust. These are the same engines LandSpace has successfully flown on the smaller Zhuque-2 rocket.<\/p>\n

LandSpace eventually plans to debut an upgraded Zhuque-3 carrying more propellant and using more powerful engines, raising its payload capacity to more than 40,000 pounds (18.3 metric tons) in reusable mode, or a few tons more with an expendable booster.<\/p>\n

From the outside, LandSpace\u2019s new rocket looks a lot like the vehicle it is trying to emulate: SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9. Like the Falcon 9, the Zhuque-3 booster\u2019s nine-engine design also features four deployable landing legs and grid fins to help steer the rocket toward landing.<\/p>\n

But LandSpace also incorporates elements from SpaceX\u2019s much heavier Starship rocket. The primary structure of the Zhuque-3 is made of stainless steel, and its engines burn methane fuel, not kerosene like the Falcon 9.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n The Zhuque-3 booster\u2019s landing legs are visible here, folded up against the rocket\u2019s stainless steel fuselage.<\/p>\n

Credit:<\/p>\n

LandSpace<\/p>\n

In preparation for the debut of the Zhuque-3, LandSpace engineers built a prototype rocket for launch and landing demonstrations. The testbed aced a flight to 10 kilometers, or about 33,000 feet, in September 2024 and descended to a pinpoint vertical landing, validating the rocket\u2019s guidance algorithms and engine restart capability.<\/p>\n

The first of many<\/p>\n

Another reusable booster is undergoing preflight preparations not far from LandSpace\u2019s launch site at Jiuquan. This rocket, called the Long March 12A, comes from one of China\u2019s established government-owned rocket firms. It could fly before the end of this year, but officials haven\u2019t publicized a schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s no Falcon 9 The Chinese companies that master reusable rocketry first will have an advantage in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-164991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}