Chinese commercial launch company Landspace aims to conduct a relaunch test of the recovered first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket within six months, after the stage successfully completed its first vertical landing on August 18, 2026.
The plan was disclosed by a company representative in comments carried by Chinese financial media outlet STAR Market Daily, hours after the rocket’s second flight. The flight placed the Honghu-03 satellite into orbit before returning the first stage to a recovery site in Minqin County of Gansu Province, approximately 390 kilometers from the launch site in Jiuquan.
A New Achievement in Chinese Rocket Recovery
The landing made Landspace the third entity in the world, after SpaceX and Blue Origin, to successfully land an orbital-class rocket booster on landing legs. It also became the first Chinese company to recover a rocket booster on land.
This follows China’s first recovery of an orbital booster in July, when a stage from the state-owned Long March 10B rocket was caught at sea using a net-equipped vessel. The attempt to recover the first stage during Zhuque-3’s maiden flight, conducted eight and a half months earlier, failed during the final stages of the engine-assisted landing, despite the rocket successfully reaching orbit.
Technical Modifications After the First Landing Attempt
Landspace introduced several design changes following the previous attempt. The modifications included reducing the number of engines used during the landing maneuver, with the aim of simplifying the system and improving its reliability, and adding an “expected landing point” determination function to the stage’s autonomous onboard safety control system. The company also improved the thermal protection system to handle the intense heat during atmospheric reentry and the associated structural loads.
Payload for Orbital Computing
The second flight also carried a secondary technical demonstration called Space-Based Intelligent Computing Payload 1.0 for China Mobile, alongside the Honghu-03 satellite. The payload was developed through cooperation between the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hongqing Technology, a Landspace subsidiary specializing in satellite manufacturing.
The payload operates a lightweight network core designed for satellites, sourced domestically, along with “agent” software onboard the satellite. The mission represents China Mobile’s first payload aimed at distributed edge computing in orbit, as part of a broader trend that also includes projects such as the Three-Body constellation of ADA Space and Orbital Chenguang.
What Changes in Practice?
The successful landing does not mean that Landspace has achieved repeated commercial operation of the recovered stage. Relaunching it within six months will be an important test of the design’s ability to withstand recovery and then return to service. According to its design, the company aims to use Zhuque-3’s first stage at least 20 times, but expects a long period of work before approaching the launch rates achieved by the Falcon 9 rocket.
Landspace is working in parallel with CASC and several other Chinese companies on reusable rocket technologies, including Space Pioneer, Galactic Energy, Deep Blue Aerospace, Orienspace, CAS Space, and iSpace, as well as newer companies such as Astronstone and Cosmoleap.