The Long March-10B left the pad at 12:15 pm local time on Friday, July 10, and about six minutes later its first stage was sitting in a cable system on a ship off Hainan. Universe Today reported that mission controllers landed and recovered the booster on the rocket’s maiden flight, after the vehicle had delivered a satellite to orbit.
The launch site was the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center, on the island province in southern China. The booster was secured by a new cable recovery system aboard a specially designed vessel. China had never recovered a booster with a net before, and it had never recovered one at sea.
Universe Today counts the Long March-10B as only the fifth orbital-class rocket system to be recovered after a propulsive landing.
How the catch works
As the booster comes down toward the recovery platform, a hook mounted on the rocket deploys and connects with tension cables. The cables slow the stage so a system of nets can take it. Once it is caught, the cable system absorbs what momentum is left, which eases the load on the ship. Auxiliary cables hold the booster steady against waves and wind, and an automated locking platform moves beneath it to clamp it in place for transport.
Other operators do it differently. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy use deployable landing legs. Rocket Lab lands the spent first stages of its Electron rockets with a drogue and a main parachute. Starship’s Super Heavy booster is plucked from the air by the large “Mechazilla” robotic arms at its landing pad. China has put most of the catching hardware on the ship.
The rocket
CALT, a division of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), announced in December of 2025 that it would develop a commercial variant of its two-stage Long March-10, to be known as the Long March-10B. Universe Today describes it as partially reusable, with a retrievable first stage and an expendable second stage, similar to Blue Origin’s New Glenn.
The vehicle is 70.2 meters (230 ft) tall and 5 m in diameter. Its first-stage core is shared with the Long March-10A and carries seven liquid oxygen and liquid kerosene engines. The upper stage burns liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Payload capacity is up to 16 metric tons, and the rocket is meant to launch commercial cargo such as large satellite constellations.
The outlet judged that the result puts China on track to become a significant player in commercial space and the satellite market in the coming years. Beijing is also working toward sending taikonauts to the Moon, currently planned for 2030.
