A Chinese aerospace company has successfully recovered a sub-stage of a rocket launched into space on land for the first time, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday, marking another step forward in China's ability to partially reuse rockets.
This success follows the successful recovery of a sub-stage of another rocket from an offshore platform last month. That rocket was operated by a state-owned company, while Tuesday's breakthrough was made by private start-up Blue Arrow Aerospace.
The reuse of a subset of rockets will allow Chinese satellite manufacturers to reduce the cost of getting into orbit and become more competitive in the global space market.
“China is ready to improve various space capabilities, such as satellite communications, but they have been short of reusable launch vehicles, which is the key to unlocking the economic benefits of these operations,” Katherine Curley, senior research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies, said in an interview Wednesday.
"Now that they have achieved reusable rocket recovery by two different companies, it gives them greater power and greater ability to expand the scale of these companies, which will become competitors of American companies in the future," she said.
However, she also noted that China still lags far behind U.S. rivals, especially Elon Musk’s private aerospace giant SpaceX. SpaceX achieved the recovery of a Falcon 9 rocket stage for the first time in 2015. Today, Falcon 9 performs launch and recovery missions that reuse one substage almost every day. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also successfully recovered a sub-stage of its New Glenn rocket for the first time last year.
Curley said the pursuit of space dominance is part of China's core national strategy, and Wednesday's launch and recovery of the first stage are another step toward that goal.
According to China's official news agency Xinhua News Agency, the reusable rocket Zhuque-3 successfully separated the first and second stages about two minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff that morning.
Xinhua News Agency said the rocket's first stage landed "smoothly" at a designated recovery point in northwest China's Gansu Province.
The second stage continued its flight and placed a satellite into orbit.
Curley said Blue Arrow Aerospace is one of several commercial launch companies in China.
The company is working hard to become profitable, she said, "so it's working hard to commercialize reusable rockets."
Previously, Chinese companies have used disposable rockets to launch satellites, with the components then falling and returning to land or sea. In July, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, a government entity, recovered a sub-stage of the Long March 10B launch vehicle through net capture in the South China Sea.
China is striving to become a space power rivaling the United States and has formulated an ambitious manned moon landing plan. At the same time, China is also building two satellite constellations, hoping to make them a system that can compete with SpaceX's Starlink satellites.
There are currently more than 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, accounting for approximately two-thirds of all active satellites in orbit around the world. Many of these satellites provide high-speed broadband networks to remote and underserved areas around the world. As of now, China's two satellite constellations only have about 400 satellites in total.
The partially reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in which one stage can return vertically to the launch site, has revolutionized the space industry. It enables SpaceX to continuously launch satellites into orbit at short intervals.
