Reusable Rocket Race: Zhuque-3’s Failed Landing and the Global State of Booster Recovery

By Eduardo Baptista

China’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket, developed by private company LandSpace, failed to make a successful vertical landing in its high-profile debut. The stainless-steel launcher is designed to place satellites into orbit and return its main stage to Earth for a controlled, upright touchdown so the booster can be reused. If LandSpace achieves reliable recovery, it would become the first Chinese company — and only the third organisation worldwide after SpaceX and Blue Origin — to reclaim an orbital rocket's main stage for reuse.

Where things stand

SpaceX

SpaceX remains the clear leader in orbital booster recovery. Its Falcon 9 boosters have completed more than 300 landings, and the company has relaunched previously flown cores on more than 200 missions. Falcon Heavy uses the same landing technology by combining three Falcon 9 cores. SpaceX has demonstrated both land- and ship-based recoveries, rapid refurbishment and reuse, and has flown some boosters 20 times or more.

Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab, operating from the U.S. and New Zealand, has pursued partial reusability for its small Electron rocket. The company has recovered first-stage hardware that returned under parachute from the ocean and has reused some recovered engines on later missions. It has not yet performed a powered, upright landing of a complete first stage or reflown an entire recovered stage in the same way SpaceX does.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin developed New Shepard, a suborbital vehicle that carries passengers and experiments briefly into space before returning. The New Shepard booster performs vertical landings and is routinely reused, but it does not reach orbital velocity. According to reports, Blue Origin recently achieved orbital booster reuse with New Glenn on its second mission; New Glenn is also among the vehicles selected by Amazon to help deploy its low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation (formerly Project Kuiper).

India

India’s space agency ISRO has experimented with reusable concepts such as Pushpak, a small winged test vehicle dropped from a helicopter to glide back to Earth. These tests are demonstrators for future reusable systems, but India has not yet recovered and reused a main rocket stage that reached orbit.

Other Chinese firms

Several private Chinese companies — including Space Epoch, Deep Blue Aerospace and Galactic Energy — have conducted vertical "hop" tests where small stages ascend hundreds to thousands of metres and return to land upright. These experiments practise takeoff, control and landing techniques needed for reuse, but none has yet recovered the main stage of an orbital rocket.

Europe

ArianeGroup and the European Space Agency are developing a test stage called Themis to perform short up-and-down flights and return to Earth, helping to inform future reusable launchers. Europe has not yet flown an orbital rocket and recovered its main stage for reuse.

Outlook: Recovering and reliably reusing rocket stages remains technically demanding. Successful reuse at scale can cut launch costs and increase cadence, accelerating deployments of satellite constellations and commercial space activity. LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 attempt highlights how competition and experimentation across private and government programs worldwide are pushing the technology forward.