A milestone in the reusable rocket race
The Long March 10B’s first stage is powered by kerosene-liquid oxygen engines, designated YF-100K. These engines differ from the Merlin engines used on SpaceX’s Falcon 9, but the approach to landing is strikingly similar. The Long March 10B uses grid fins—small, lattice-like aerodynamic surfaces that deploy during descent—and throttleable engines that adjust thrust for a precise landing. This is the same core engineering philosophy that guided SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which achieved the world’s first successful orbital-stage recovery on December 21, 2015.
Since that breakthrough, SpaceX has landed more than 250 Falcon 9 first stages and routinely reflies recovered stages. India’s ISRO demonstrated a vertical landing with its Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) on April 2, 2023, though that was a suborbital test—an important step but not equivalent to recovering a stage from orbit. China’s Long March 10B recovery now places CASC alongside those efforts, though the gap in operational reuse remains wide. CASC has not yet announced whether it will attempt to reflight the recovered stage.
Technology behind the landing
The Long March 10B’s YF-100K engines burn kerosene and liquid oxygen, a propellant combination that is both powerful and relatively clean-burning—the same type used by the Merlin engines on the Falcon 9. The difference lies in design and heritage: the YF-100K is a domestically developed Chinese engine, while the Merlin is an American engine refined over more than a decade of flight experience.
For those involved in China’s space program, the Long March 10B recovery validates years of work. It also sends a signal that China intends to compete in the reusable launch vehicle arena. The Long March 10 rocket family emerged from decades of Chinese space ambitions tied to lunar exploration. Early concepts were shown at an air show in 2018, where planners described a vehicle with enough power for crewed missions to the Moon. Those early designs, sometimes called the CZ-5DY or CZ-5G, evolved into the present family of three rockets.
The standard Long March 10 is a super heavy-lift rocket with a core and two boosters, designed to send crews or landers to the Moon. Two other variants, the Long March 10A and 10B, are designed to recover and reuse their first stages by landing vertically on a floating platform at sea. The program is part of China’s larger push for a human presence beyond low Earth orbit, a goal that has driven development of new engines and flight hardware.
What comes next and why it matters
Reusable rocket technology aims to reduce the cost of space access by recovering and refurbishing rocket stages. For every stage that lands intact, the cost of the next launch drops. SpaceX has shown what is possible when a company commits to reusability from the ground up, routinely reusing stages for multiple missions. India has demonstrated that even suborbital tests can advance the technology. China has now shown it can recover an orbital stage.
What remains to be seen is whether CASC will take the next step: reflight. The narrative arc of reusable rocket technology is one of incremental progress punctuated by breakthroughs. The Long March 10B recovery is one such breakthrough. For those involved, it is a moment of pride. For the rest of the world, it is a reminder that the race to lower the cost of space access is far from over.
The significance for readers is straightforward: recovering and refurbishing rocket stages can lower the cost of launching satellites and spacecraft. Every stage that returns intact reduces the need to build a new one from scratch. For China, this milestone signals a shift toward reusability in a program that has long relied on expendable rockets. With crewed lunar missions planned by the end of the decade and a larger heavy-lift rocket in development beyond that, the Long March 10 family represents both a stepping stone and a competitive entry in the global push for cheaper access to space.
Sources
- China's Long March-10B rocket recovery shakes up space race
- Net vs. Legs: How China's Long March-10B Rocket Landing Is…
