The Long March 12A comes from one of China’s established rocket developers, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), part of the country’s state-owned aerospace enterprise. The Long March 12A has comparable performance to LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 and will also target a landing of its booster stage downrange on its first flight.
A handful of other rocket developers also claim to be weeks or months away from launching their first reusable boosters. One of them, Space Pioneer, might have been first to flight with its new Tianlong-3 rocket if not for the thorny problem of an accidental launch during a booster test-firing last year. Space Pioneer eventually completed a successful static fire in September of this year, and the company recently released a photo showing its rocket on the launch pad.
The Zhuque-3 rocket begins its first flight.
Credit:
LandSpace
These new rockets can each lift medium-class payloads into orbit. In its first iteration, the Zhuque-3 rocket is capable of placing a payload of more than 17,600 pounds (8 metric tons) into low-Earth orbit after accounting for the fuel reserves required for booster recovery. This makes Zhuque-3 the largest and most powerful commercial rocket ever launched from China.
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.
LandSpace has raised more than $400 million since its founding in 2015, primarily from venture capital firms and government-backed investment funds. LandSpace initially developed its own liquid-fueled engines and a light-class launcher named Zhuque-2, which became the world’s first methane-burning launcher to reach orbit in 2023. LandSpace’s Zhuque-2 has logged four successful missions in six tries.
The larger Zhuque-3 is a “new-generation, low-cost, high-capacity, high-frequency, reusable LOX/methane launch vehicle,” LandSpace says. The company plans to reuse its Zhuque-3 boosters at least 20 times, “enabling efficient multi-satellite deployment for Internet constellations and China’s future space programs.”