Wednesday, August 19, 2026

LandSpace lands Zhuque-3 booster, a first for private China

LandSpace

LandSpace's Zhuque-3 launched its second orbital mission on August 18 from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Zone at Jiuquan and successfully landed its first stage on legs, China's first-ever recovery of a private orbital-class rocket booster and the country's first successful booster landing on land. The mission arrived well ahead of the no-earlier-than August 31 estimate set after an August 10 postponement, and LandSpace says it now moves from recovery-technology verification to engineering-scale reuse.