China Successfully Launches and Recovers Reusable Rocket Booster

China has successfully launched and recovered an orbital-class reusable rocket booster at sea for the first time, becoming the second nation after the United States to achieve this technological milestone.

According to state media CCTV, China launched the Long March 10B (LM-10B) rocket from Hainan on Friday (the 10th). After precisely delivering a satellite into its designated orbit, the rocket's first stage vertically returned approximately six minutes after separation and was recovered on a sea platform using a world-first 'net capture' system.

The LM-10B rocket has a core diameter of 5 meters, is approximately 63 to 70 meters in length, and generates about 890 tons of thrust at liftoff. Unlike SpaceX's leg-based vertical landing approach, the LM-10B adopts a 'coordinated rocket-ground, simplified onboard systems' design philosophy. The system actively captures the first stage, which is equipped with hook devices, using a flexible 'well-shaped' net deployed on the 'Navigator' sea platform.

CCTV highlighted significant advantages of this net-based recovery technology: First, eliminating heavy landing legs greatly reduces the rocket's dead weight, increasing its low Earth orbit payload capacity to 16 tons in reusable mode. Second, the system relaxes the precision requirements for terminal attitude control, enhancing recovery reliability and fault tolerance. Additionally, the LM-10B's engines and 5-meter-diameter configuration are highly compatible with China's future crewed lunar mission rocket, providing valuable flight data for upcoming human spaceflight programs.

Rocket recovery technology is key to reducing launch costs. Experts analyze that reusing a rocket five times already shows cost advantages, and reuse over ten times could reduce per-launch costs by approximately 80%. This breakthrough directly addresses the launch capacity bottleneck for large-scale deployment of China's satellite internet constellations (such as 'Qianfan Constellation'), propelling the commercial space industry from a 'single-use' model toward a new era of 'low-cost, high-frequency' operations.

CCTV reported that the research team will further optimize and plan to achieve reuse of the first-stage rocket before the end of this year.