China successfully recovered the first stage of an orbital rocket for the first time on July 10, marking a major step toward reusable launch technology. The Long March 10B, built by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), lifted off from Hainan island, and about six minutes after stage separation its booster descended onto a recovery ship at sea.
Unlike SpaceX's Falcon 9, which unfolds landing legs to settle onto a floating platform, China's booster was caught by a netting system strung across a large frame mounted on the ship. The Long March 10B carries roughly the same payload capacity as a Falcon 9, and the landing makes China only the second country to recover an orbital booster after an actual launch.
CASC says it plans to refly the recovered booster by the end of 2026. "When China figures out how to reuse them, that is going to drop the launch cost for them tremendously," said Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation. Reusability has been the key driver behind SpaceX's dominance of the launch market, and a working Chinese equivalent would intensify competition in the fast-growing space industry.