China Lands Reusable Booster but Lags SpaceX on Reuse — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- LandSpace launched its Zhuque-3 rocket last month and landed the booster stage safely — a first for China — but the country has yet to fly a booster more than once, while SpaceX has done so hundreds of times.
- China's 15th Five-Year Plan targets becoming a "space power" by 2030, with reusable rockets central to planned crewed moon missions and a Starlink-rival satellite constellation.
- Zeno Leoni at King's College London says Xi Jinping has framed technological leadership — in AI, quantum, fusion and space — as the prerequisite for geopolitical superpower status, with a 2049 centenary deadline.
- Kevin Sagis at UT Austin compares the current race to the US-Soviet space race, arguing China's one-party system gives it Cold War-style advantages: huge resources, single-minded focus, and tolerance for risk and astronaut loss.
- Chris Ellis at the University of Nottingham estimates China is roughly 10 years behind on current reusable-rocket technology, but notes China's Zhuque-2 became the first methane-fuelled rocket to reach orbit in 2023 — a milestone SpaceX has yet to match.
- Galactic Energy's Pallas-1 completed its first flight this month without a recovery attempt, while the founder of Deep Blue Aerospace has publicly stated China can catch SpaceX by 2030.
- China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is developing the Long March 9 with a reusable first stage and a partially reusable Long March 10, which recovered its first stage at sea earlier this year.
Why it matters: Reusable rockets are central to China's stated 2030 space-power plan and to fielding a Starlink rival, and LandSpace's first successful booster landing marks Beijing's entry into a domain SpaceX has dominated with hundreds of reuses. Sagis's hare-and-tortoise analogy — the Soviet Union first to orbit, the US first to the moon — argues patient state funding could eventually overcome SpaceX's lead despite the roughly 10-year technology gap Ellis identifies today.
Ask SkimNews
