A private Chinese space firm successfully sent its Zhuque-3 rocket to orbit but failed in its historic attempt to re-land the rocket booster Wednesday – the first such trial by a Chinese firm as the country’s growing commercial space sector races to catch up with American rivals like SpaceX.
Beijing-based LandSpace, one of the sector’s leading firms, launched its Zhuque-3 rocket into space from a remote, desert launch site in northwestern China.
The rocket entered orbit as planned, but its first stage – the portion of the vehicle that propels it at liftoff – did not successfully return to a landing site, instead crashing down, the company said in a statement.
“An anomaly occurred after the first-stage engine ignited during the landing phase, preventing a soft landing on the designated recovery pad,” the statement said. “The debris landed at the edge of the recovery area, resulting in a failed recovery test.”
Even though unsuccessful, the trial has placed the company at the head of a pack of Chinese firms vying to develop reusable rocket technology within a growing commercial space sector that Beijing hopes will power its competition with global rivals and help transform the country into a “strong aerospace nation.”
AVeryFineUsername on
That’s ok, you’ll get em next time China. The first attempts at this always fail
universalhat on
spacex booster blows up “well this is normal, move fast and break things!”
chinese booster blows up “look at these fool clowns trying to catch up to spacex har”
sporkmissile on
Didn’t steal the right plans, nice try communism
AgreeableEmploy1884 on
I was honestly expecting the booster to die on the entry burn but i was pleasantly surprised when it survived past that. Blue landed on their second attempt even with years of R&D. I think they have a very good chance to land their booster on the second launch.
BaPef on
Hopefully they got good data to make improvements for next time
Mrstrawberry209 on
They’ll succeed eventually.
GrinningPariah on
No one’s ever gotten it first try. I’m still amazed Blue Origin did it *second* try.
If you wanna build a reusable rocket, seems like you’ve gotta blow up a few first.
IDoStuff100 on
Bit of a click bait title. It’s not a failed bid until they give up. Putting something in orbit and getting the booster all the way down to the landing burn is a pretty successful first flight. It’s one step more than what Blue did on their first launch (since NG didn’t make it past the entry burn)
johnnycat75 on
I feel like it could stand to be a little more reusable.
Well_Socialized on
They really are just like SpaceX!
heytherehellogoodbye on
Don’t most of SpaceX blow up
edit: lmao y’all downvoters are desperately ignoring the entire way SpaceX got to where it got – “move fast break/explode things”. There was a story every week about a rocket of theirs exploding at one point. That China is iterating is no indication of failure, it’s literally how things get built and progressed.
Alimbiquated on
I guess the headline wants us to believe that they’ll never catch up to Space X because Space X rockets never explode.
T0yToy on
What a stupid title. They put their payload into orbit first try, that’s a success, period.
Decronym on
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[BO](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3wdj3 “Last usage”)|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3nrbk “Last usage”)|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[RTLS](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3y6xf “Last usage”)|Return to Launch Site|
|[SMART](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3wdj3 “Last usage”)|”Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology”, ULA’s engine reuse philosophy|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3wdj3 “Last usage”)|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
I like how the media in consistent. Nothing works for them, just like the did when SpaceX started experimenting with landing, just like every single starship launch. They didn’t fail, paperboy, they learned a LOT.
China is learning how not to land an orbital rocket booster, just like SpaceX did.
17 Comments
A private Chinese space firm successfully sent its Zhuque-3 rocket to orbit but failed in its historic attempt to re-land the rocket booster Wednesday – the first such trial by a Chinese firm as the country’s growing commercial space sector races to catch up with American rivals like SpaceX.
Beijing-based LandSpace, one of the sector’s leading firms, launched its Zhuque-3 rocket into space from a remote, desert launch site in northwestern China.
The rocket entered orbit as planned, but its first stage – the portion of the vehicle that propels it at liftoff – did not successfully return to a landing site, instead crashing down, the company said in a statement.
“An anomaly occurred after the first-stage engine ignited during the landing phase, preventing a soft landing on the designated recovery pad,” the statement said. “The debris landed at the edge of the recovery area, resulting in a failed recovery test.”
Even though unsuccessful, the trial has placed the company at the head of a pack of Chinese firms vying to develop reusable rocket technology within a growing commercial space sector that Beijing hopes will power its competition with global rivals and help transform the country into a “strong aerospace nation.”
That’s ok, you’ll get em next time China. The first attempts at this always fail
spacex booster blows up “well this is normal, move fast and break things!”
chinese booster blows up “look at these fool clowns trying to catch up to spacex har”
Didn’t steal the right plans, nice try communism
I was honestly expecting the booster to die on the entry burn but i was pleasantly surprised when it survived past that. Blue landed on their second attempt even with years of R&D. I think they have a very good chance to land their booster on the second launch.
Hopefully they got good data to make improvements for next time
They’ll succeed eventually.
No one’s ever gotten it first try. I’m still amazed Blue Origin did it *second* try.
If you wanna build a reusable rocket, seems like you’ve gotta blow up a few first.
Bit of a click bait title. It’s not a failed bid until they give up. Putting something in orbit and getting the booster all the way down to the landing burn is a pretty successful first flight. It’s one step more than what Blue did on their first launch (since NG didn’t make it past the entry burn)
I feel like it could stand to be a little more reusable.
They really are just like SpaceX!
Don’t most of SpaceX blow up
edit: lmao y’all downvoters are desperately ignoring the entire way SpaceX got to where it got – “move fast break/explode things”. There was a story every week about a rocket of theirs exploding at one point. That China is iterating is no indication of failure, it’s literally how things get built and progressed.
I guess the headline wants us to believe that they’ll never catch up to Space X because Space X rockets never explode.
What a stupid title. They put their payload into orbit first try, that’s a success, period.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[BO](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3wdj3 “Last usage”)|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3nrbk “Last usage”)|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[RTLS](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3y6xf “Last usage”)|Return to Launch Site|
|[SMART](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3wdj3 “Last usage”)|”Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology”, ULA’s engine reuse philosophy|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1pda66a/stub/ns3wdj3 “Last usage”)|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
—————-
^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o)^( has 15 acronyms.)
^([Thread #11941 for this sub, first seen 3rd Dec 2025, 18:35])
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I like how the media in consistent. Nothing works for them, just like the did when SpaceX started experimenting with landing, just like every single starship launch. They didn’t fail, paperboy, they learned a LOT.
China is learning how not to land an orbital rocket booster, just like SpaceX did.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ)
I mean, it’s their first test. I’d be surprised if it didn’t blow up.