China achieves its first rocket recovery on land

In a landmark moment for China's space sector, a reusable rocket booster touched down on Wednesday on its predesignated landing site in a northwestern desert, marking the nation's first such controlled recovery on land, following a similar achievement made at sea last month.

A video clip from LandSpace, a Beijing-based private rocket manufacturer, showed a white speck appearing in the sky above a desert at 7:41 am as the first-stage booster of the ZQ 3 Y2 carrier rocket returned to Earth, descending smoothly and steadily about six minutes after the launch vehicle lifted off from a commercial spaceport.

Footage from surveillance drones flying near the landing trajectory showed that during the final phase of its descent, at an altitude of roughly 3 kilometers above ground, the booster ignited an engine at the center of its base for propulsive deceleration.

Shortly before touchdown, the booster deployed its four legs, which firmly supported the more than 40-meter-tall structure as the engine shut down upon landing on a concrete pad in Minqin county, Gansu province.

The achievement made China the second country in the world, after the United States, to have successfully conducted both land- and sea-based rocket recovery.

LandSpace is the second Chinese enterprise to ever recapture a reusable rocket booster.

On July 10, State-owned conglomerate China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp achieved the nation's first such successful recovery when it captured a Long March 10B rocket booster in the South China Sea using a cable system mounted on a special vessel platform off the coast of Hainan province.

On Wednesday, the ZQ 3 Y2 rocket — standing tall at 66.1 meters and primarily made from stainless steel — blasted off at 7:35 am from its dedicated service tower at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, about 390 km from the predesignated booster landing and recovery site.

The rocket's second-stage booster separated from its first stage about two minutes after liftoff and continued flying upward to transport the Honghu 03 satellite to a preset orbit.

The first stage then entered its return phase following a preprogrammed flight procedure. It sequentially completed a series of critical maneuvers — high-altitude return attitude adjustment, reentry powered deceleration, aerodynamic glide control, pre-landing powered deceleration and deployment of landing legs — before touchdown.

In December 2025, the ZQ 3 Y1 — the first launch vehicle in the ZQ 3 series — became China's first reusable rocket to reach orbit. However, the recovery attempt failed as the first-stage booster burst into a fireball over the landing site in Minqin in the final seconds of descent.

Shen Chao, deputy chief designer of the ZQ 3 variants, said the recovery process for any reusable rocket poses several major technical challenges.

"For example, during atmospheric reentry, multiple onboard systems must precisely coordinate with each other, with extremely tight sequencing and a very high degree of synchronization. Also, as the booster descends at an extremely high speed, it requires attitude control and engine thrust adjustments to be completed within a very short window," Shen told reporters at a briefing in Minqin several days ahead of Wednesday's mission.

To tackle these hurdles, the Y2 has received targeted upgrades over its predecessor, Shen said. "Its propulsion system has been refined to reduce the number of engines that fire during the return flight, in order to cut structural complexity and control difficulty. The Y2 also features improved flight safety control programs that can autonomously determine the landing point in real time and execute safety measures. Its base heat protection measures have also been optimized," he added.

Shen explained why LandSpace chose Minqin for the recovery mission. "First, the site's position aligns with our rocket's launch azimuth (the compass bearing of a rocket's ground track during ascent) and is compatible with its lift capacity parameters. Second, the facility sits in a sparsely populated area, and it also has good transportation access being close to a paved road, which is convenient for bringing the recovered booster back to the manufacturing base. Third, Minqin's climate is well-suited for recovery missions, and the local government has been highly supportive of the project," he said.

Future endeavors On whether the recovered Y2 booster will be reused in a subsequent launch, Huang Cheng, deputy project manager for the ZQ 3 series, said the decision will depend primarily on its structural integrity and overall airframe safety after recovery.

"Engineers will conduct an initial inspection at the landing site. The booster will then be transported back to LandSpace's manufacturing facility in Zhejiang province for disassembly, where its engines will be removed for comprehensive examination and testing. Necessary component replacements will be carried out during the process," he said, adding that the final decision on reusing the booster will be made after all test results are reviewed.

According to Huang, the ZQ 3 production facility in Zhejiang is highly automated and features China's first laser welding system capable of putting together rocket bodies. Once mass production is ramped up, the facility will have an annual production capacity of eight to 10 rockets in the ZQ 3 series.

In the near future, the ZQ 3 will facilitate China's efforts to build its massive space-based internet networks and other commercial constellations, he said.

Technical specifications from LandSpace reveal that the Y2 rocket used during Wednesday's mission had a diameter of 4.5 meters and weighed about 570 metric tons when fully fueled.

Its first stage was propelled by nine TQ 12A methane engines, while the second stage ran on a TQ 15A methane engine, boasting a liftoff thrust of nearly 770 tons — enough to transport heavy satellites to low-Earth or sun-synchronous orbits.

Compared with traditional types of rocket engines that can function only once, a methane engine is reusable and more environmentally friendly.

LandSpace started its research and development of the ZQ 3 model in August 2023, intending to build a reusable liquid-fueled launch vehicle that boasts strong carrying capacity but at the same time is low on cost. The company conducted the world's first orbital mission of a methane-propelled launch vehicle in July 2023 with the second flight of its ZQ 2 carrier rocket from the Jiuquan spaceport.