HAINAN, China — China has successfully completed the first controlled recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster with the maiden flight of the Long March 10B, marking a major milestone in the country's reusable launch vehicle program. The mission also became the world's first orbital-class rocket recovery to use a net-and-hook capture system instead of traditional landing legs.
The Long March 10B lifted off at 12:15 p.m. local time (0415 UTC) from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site, carrying its payload into low Earth orbit. After successfully completing the primary mission, the rocket's first stage separated from the second stage and began a controlled return to Earth.
About six minutes after stage separation, the booster performed a powered vertical descent and landed on the Linghangzhe recovery vessel in the South China Sea. Instead of deploying landing legs, the booster used four specially designed landing hooks that engaged with a tensioned cable net installed on the offshore recovery platform, allowing the stage to be secured safely.
The recovery method differs from the approach used by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. While SpaceX lands boosters vertically using deployable landing legs on ground pads or drone ships, the Long March 10B relies on a net-and-hook capture system without landing legs. According to Chinese developers, removing landing legs reduces the rocket's structural weight and can increase payload capacity.
During its return, the booster used grid fins and reaction control systems to guide its trajectory before reigniting its engines to slow the descent. As it approached the recovery platform, the landing hooks connected with the platform's cable system. The Linghangzhe recovery vessel is equipped with tracking technology designed to guide the capture process and stabilize the booster during recovery at sea.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) confirmed that both the launch and first-stage recovery were completed successfully. The organization described the mission as China's first successful controlled recovery of an orbital-class launch vehicle's first stage.
The Long March 10B is a commercial member of the Long March 10 rocket family and shares its first-stage design with the crew-rated Long March 10A, which is being developed to support China's Mengzhou crewed lunar program. The successful recovery provides important data for future reusable launch operations and supports China's plans for crewed lunar missions before 2030.
CASC has stated that it plans to reuse the recovered first stage before the end of 2026 as development of reusable launch technology continues.
With this achievement, China becomes the second country after the United States to demonstrate recovery of an orbital-class launch vehicle's first stage through controlled reentry and powered landing. While the United States pioneered reusable orbital boosters with SpaceX's Falcon 9 program, China's Long March 10B introduces a different recovery concept based on a net-and-hook capture system.
The successful demonstration represents another step in China's efforts to develop reusable launch vehicles aimed at reducing launch costs and improving the efficiency of future space missions. It also provides a foundation for further development of reusable technologies across the Long March 10 rocket family, including vehicles intended to support future lunar exploration.
Source: spacechina
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