Written by Staff Writer
Chinese state media are calling LandSpace Technology Corporation’s successful completion of another vertical take-off and landing test flight last week a “significant breakthrough in China’s commercial space industry.”
Beijing-headquartered LandSpace completed a 200-second test flight of its reusable Zhuque-3 rocket on September 11, 2024. The Chinese State Council’s English language news site said the flight, which reached an altitude of 10,000 metres, marked “a crucial step towards realising high-capacity, low-cost, high-frequency and reusable space launches in the future.”
The Chinese Government is encouraging state-owned and private sector space companies to develop reusable rockets in a bid to counter US dominance in the field. This was the privately-owned LandSpace’s third demonstration of its methane-fuelled rocket but the first time engine reignition, a critical deceleration phase in rocket recovery, had been tested in China.
“The test procedure included ascent, engine shutdown, power-off glide, in-flight engine restart and soft landing, with all performance indicators meeting the expected design specifications,” the report reads.
LandSpace’s WeChat account documented the short flight from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China. The engine shut down 113 seconds into the flight, after which the rocket cruised to its peak altitude of 10,002 metres. On the descent, after about 40 seconds of unpowered gliding and at an altitude of 4,640 metres, the engine restarted for deceleration purposes, and the rocket landed less than two metres from the landing pad’s centre.
In addition to demonstrating the ability to restart the rocket’s engine in flight, the test flight demonstrated the rocket’s guidance and control algorithms at high altitude, high speed, and under dynamic pressure conditions. The test flight also demonstrated the rocket’s reusability and highlighted its ability to handle high-altitude crosswind (36 kilometres/second) interference. “Through two vertical take-off and landing recovery tests, the model team successfully verified a number of key technologies for reusable rockets, laying a solid foundation for the future first flight and recovery of the Zhuque-3,” a translation of a LandSpace statement on the launch reads.
The CEO of the privately-owned Jiangsu Deep Blue Aerospace Technology Company went on the record last week, saying that China matched the US on many space capacities, having sent missions to the Moon and Mars. However, it was a laggard when it came to reusable commercial spacecraft.
“China has not yet mastered this technology.” Huo Liang said. Other anonymous Chinese space insiders said that the country could take up to five years to develop the equivalent of a Falcon 9 rocket and two decades to manufacture a domestic equivalent of a SpaceX Starship.
LandSpace hopes to launch its first commercial Zhuque-3-powered space mission next year. The rocket can deliver up to 21.3 tonnes to low-Earth orbit for single-use missions and 18.3 tonnes for recovery missions. LandSpace hopes to be able to reuse each rocket up to 20 times.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has previously said he wants a strong commercial space industry for domestic purposes and also to counterbalance US dominance.
Another Chinese space startup, Deep Blue, aims to demonstrate its reusable rocket technology later this month.
