China successfully recovers Long March 10B rocket following maiden flight, marking a breakthrough in rocket reusability

The Long March 10B, China's newest rocket model, made history on Friday as the first Chinese launch vehicle to be successfully recovered after an orbital mission.

The rocket's maiden flight made China the second country, after the United States, to own reliable rocket reusability technology. It also marked the world's first recovery of an orbital-class rocket using a wire arrestment recovery system.

At 12:15 pm, seven engines on the Long March 10B's first-stage booster roared to life, burning liquid oxygen and kerosene and lifting the 63.6-meter-tall rocket off a service tower at the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center in Wenchang, a coastal city in Hainan province.

The rocket pierced through white clouds, leaving a trail of vapor against the bright sky.

After roughly two and a half minutes, the vehicle reached the separation point several kilometers above the Karman Line, the globally recognized boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, where its first- and second-stage boosters separated and the first-stage engines cut off temporarily.

A single liquid oxygen-methane engine on the second stage then ignited, propelling the payload-carrying upper stage toward its target orbit. The stage later deployed a satellite into its preset orbit hundreds of kilometers above Earth.