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China’s state-owned space company successfully launched a Long March orbital rocket and landed the booster on a naval rescue ship, making it the second country to achieve the feat.
Friday’s demonstration shows that the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is ready to match the advance that propelled SpaceX to the top of the heap: reusing the same booster over and over again to cut the cost of launching spacecraft. CASC said it will try to reuse the booster, which can carry the same amount of payload as the backbone of the SpaceX Falcon 9, by the end of the year.
Instead of opening the landing legs to stabilize on a floating platform, as the Falcon 9 rocket does, the Chinese approach uses a net strung across a large frame on a rescue ship to catch the descending rocket. However, the ability to return the missile to the ship in a controlled flight depends on sophisticated guidance software and sensors, along with engines reliable enough to restart and powerful enough to survive a descent through the atmosphere.
SpaceX is currently breaking launch records on an annual basis with its fleet of reusable Falcon 9 rocket boosters. The vehicle supports the company’s Starlink space network, which relies on regular and cheap access to space, in addition to its work for NASA and the US Space Force.
China will not compete directly with Musk for launch customers because of national security rules that have effectively divided the global market for missiles between the United States and Europe on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. However, a reusable rocket would enable China’s satellite communications networks and virtual orbital data centers to compete with SpaceX’s offerings.
This means more competition for Starlink in global markets, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. For the US military, this means reducing its superiority in space. The Long March’s boosted recovery comes days after a consortium of investigative journalists I mentioned New documents show that China and Russia are cooperating on ways to harm Starlink over its successes in Ukraine.
Unless SpaceX can successfully launch its larger Starship rocket. The last attempt to launch the rocket ended in Mixed results At best, but Musk’s new public group is expected to make another attempt this month. The static fire test of the massive booster appears to have gone 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 Reuse it Earlier this year. Blue Origin saw one of its rockets Explode on the launch pad in May, delaying any further attempts for the time being. Rocket Lab is working on the Neutron, which is intended to fly using a reusable booster Stockspace It is developing a fully reusable rocket and hopes to test it this year.
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