“A historic day in China’s space program!” Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, wrote on X after the Long March 10B flew for the first time on Friday, July 10. She said the rocket recovered its first stage “via a sea-based net” and called it the country’s first controlled rocket recovery.
The 63.6-meter rocket left a service tower at the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center in Wenchang at 12:15 p.m. local time, China Daily reported. Seven engines in the first stage, burning liquid oxygen and kerosene, pushed it through white cloud and left a vapor trail across a clear sky.
About two and a half minutes in, the rocket reached the point of separation several kilometers above the Karman Line, the recognized boundary between the atmosphere and space. The first-stage engines shut off briefly as the stages parted. A single liquid oxygen-methane engine on the second stage lit next and carried the payload toward its target orbit, where the stage released a satellite hundreds of kilometers above Earth. Ars Technica identified the payload only as CX-26.
Caught by cables
The booster’s trip home is what set the flight apart. Ars Technica said it came down from space about 10 minutes after liftoff and steered itself into a four-legged frame fixed to a vessel at sea. Tensioned cables strung across the ship in a grid caught it as its landing engines shut down. The scorched booster was left hanging in midair.
China Daily called it the world’s first recovery of an orbital-class rocket with a wire arrestment system. Chinese officials described the mission as a “complete success.”
Third in line
The catch makes the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and its subsidiary, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the third organization to recover an orbital-class booster. SpaceX did it with the Falcon 9 in 2015 and with the Starship/Super Heavy booster in 2024. Blue Origin landed its New Glenn booster on an offshore platform for the first time last November. China Daily noted that the flight also made China the second country, after the United States, with reliable rocket reuse technology.
The methods differ. SpaceX and Blue Origin bring Falcon 9 and New Glenn boosters down on engines, onto offshore platforms or onshore pads. For Starship, SpaceX went another way and caught the booster at its launch pad with mechanical arms on the tower. China’s version hangs the booster from cables on a ship.
Sources
- China successfully recovers Long March 10B rocket following maiden flight, marking a breakthrough in rocket reusability
- China recovered its first reusable rocket and showed a new way to do it
