China’s space program entered a new competitive arena on June 23, 2024, when the Long March 10B rocket successfully completed a recovery test, marking the nation’s first foray into reusable launch technology. The milestone places China in a field that U.S. companies have dominated for nearly a decade.
SpaceX achieved the first recovered booster landing of a Falcon 9 first stage on December 21, 2015, and has since executed more than 250 booster landings. Blue Origin’s New Shepard performed its first vertical landing even earlier, on November 23, 2015. With the Long March 10B’s recovery, the world now has three viable reusable rocket systems: the Falcon 9, the suborbital New Shepard, and China’s new entrant.
Long March 10B: Design, Cost, and Funding Profile
The Long March 10B employs a vertical landing system that shares core elements with the Falcon 9, including grid fins and throttleable engines. Both rockets burn kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellant.
A notable difference lies in the first-stage descent: whereas the Falcon 9 relies entirely on propulsive landing, the Long March 10B uses a parachute-assisted descent for its first stage. This engineering trade-off reflects different approaches to recovery and could influence future cost and reliability benchmarks. In terms of payload, the Long March 10B can carry 27 metric tons to low Earth orbit, compared with 22.8 metric tons for the Falcon 9 and 63.8 metric tons for the Falcon Heavy. Cost estimates show the Long March 10B at approximately $60 million per launch, undercutting the Falcon 9’s estimated $67 million.
China’s program is state-funded through the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT). According to state media, the Chinese government has allocated $10 billion since 2018 specifically for reusable rocket development.
By contrast, SpaceX and Blue Origin are privately funded U.S. companies.
Technical Distinctions and Market Realities
The parachute-assisted descent technique is a clear technical distinction from the Falcon 9’s purely propulsive landing. That difference aside, the Long March 10B faces significant market limitations.
The U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) restrict American satellite components from being launched on Chinese rockets. This constraint narrows the Long March 10B’s addressable market to satellites that contain no U.S.-origin parts. The broader Asia-Pacific launch market, valued at several billion dollars annually, now includes a third reusable player, but the competitive impact will depend on operational tempo.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has demonstrated rapid turnaround times between flights; whether the Long March 10B can match that pace remains unproven. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has not yet published a launch schedule beyond the recovery test.
The next milestones will be a full orbital mission with payload deployment, followed by a re-flight of a recovered booster. State media have indicated a target of multiple reuses per booster, though no specific number has been confirmed.
Broader Context of Reusable Rocket Development
Efforts to make rockets reusable date to the mid-20th century, when engineers in the United States and Soviet Union experimented with parachute landings and winged recovery to reduce the cost of spaceflight by recovering major components. Technical challenges limited early progress.
The NASA Space Shuttle program in the 1990s achieved some reuse of orbiters and solid rocket boosters, but high refurbishment costs tempered expectations. The landscape shifted decisively when private companies refined the approach: SpaceX achieved the first successful vertical landing of a rocket stage in late 2015, and Blue Origin followed days later. Those milestones emphasized cost-efficient, rapid-turnaround systems capable of multiple flights with minimal refurbishment. A reusable launch vehicle is designed to return its first stage or other components intact, allowing them to be launched again and lowering the expense of reaching space.
This matters now because lower launch costs could expand satellite deployments, deep-space missions, and commercial space tourism. China’s entry, through the Long March 10 series, offers an alternative supply chain and launch service for nations and projects restricted by export controls.
As lunar ambitions grow—with crewed missions planned by 2030—the ability to reuse heavy-lift hardware could shape the economics and pace of human space exploration. The Long March 10B’s technical milestone is clear, and its competitive implications for the region are significant, but its ultimate impact on the global launch market awaits the next phase of testing and operational flights.
Sources
- China achieves reusable rocket breakthrough with Long March-10B
- China's Sea-Based Rocket Recovery: A Historic Milestone
