BEIJING, July 10 — The numbers coming out of China’s Long March 10B program are the kind that make a space enthusiast sit up a little straighter. But for the engineers and mission planners at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the real story isn’t just about raw power—it’s about what that power can now do, and how often, and for how much less money. The rocket, which made its debut flight on June 23, 2024, is designed to be reused up to ten times per first stage.
That first flight also marked a significant milestone: a 100 percent success rate on the very first recovery attempt, with the first stage safely returned. For an industry where landing a booster on a drone ship is still a relatively young art, that kind of debut is rare.
CASC has set a clear economic target. In its reusable configuration, the Long March 10B can lift 14,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. That capacity expands to 18,000 kilograms in expendable mode, and the rocket can also deliver 8,000 kilograms to geostationary transfer orbit when flying without reusability.
The company aims to reduce launch costs by 30 percent compared to non-reusable Long March rockets, targeting a price of $5,000 per kilogram to LEO in reusable mode. That’s down from approximately $7,000 per kilogram for the Long March 7.
The rocket stands 60 meters tall, with a diameter of 3.35 meters and a launch mass of 450 metric tons. It burns liquid oxygen and kerosene, carrying 400 metric tons of propellant. The first stage is powered by four YF-100K engines, each producing 1,200 kilonewtons of thrust, for a combined sea-level thrust of 4,800 kilonewtons.
The second stage uses a single YF-100M engine, delivering 1,350 kilonewtons of thrust in vacuum. Refurbishment costs are estimated at 10 percent of the cost of building a new first stage. That kind of math—reusing a stage for a tenth of the price of a new one—is what makes the economics of frequent access to space begin to pencil out.
The drone ship used for recovery, named ‘Bohai Bay’, has a landing platform measuring 80 meters by 20 meters. It’s a familiar sight in the world of rocket recovery, a floating target in the ocean that has to be hit with precision.
For CASC, the Long March 10B represents a deliberate step toward making space access routine and more affordable. The 30 percent cost reduction target, if achieved, would mark a real shift in the economics of China’s launch industry. And with a design life of up to ten reuses per first stage, the rocket is built for the long haul—not just a single headline-grabbing flight.
What comes next will be the test of that design. The maiden flight proved the concept could work on the first try.
Now the question is how quickly CASC can turn that success into a steady cadence of launches, each one bringing the cost per kilogram a little closer to that $5,000 target. For an industry where every kilogram to orbit counts, that’s the number to watch.
