By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, Dec 3 (Reuters) – China’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket, developed by private firm LandSpace, failed to make a successful landing on Wednesday, but its debut launch has thrust the global race for reusable rockets into the spotlight.
The stainless steel launcher is designed to put satellites into orbit and then fly its main stage back to Earth for a vertical landing – with the aim of using it again.
If LandSpace can make that work consistently, it would become the first Chinese company – and only the third in the world after SpaceX and Blue Origin – to recover the main stage of an orbital rocket for reuse.
Below is the state of play on reusable rocket technology:
SPACEX
SpaceX in the U.S. is so far the only company that has managed to land and fly again the main stage of an orbital rocket. Its Falcon 9 rocket has landed more than 300 times and the company has launched previously flown boosters more than 200 times.
Falcon Heavy, a larger rocket that straps three Falcon 9 cores together, uses the same landing technology.
SpaceX has shown it can land rockets both on pads on land and on ships at sea, turn them around quickly for new missions and fly some boosters as many as 20 times.
ROCKET LAB
Rocket Lab, which operates out of the U.S. and New Zealand, has made part of its small Electron rocket reusable. The company has dropped back its first stages under a parachute into the ocean and then used some of the recovered engines on later flights.
It has not yet landed a full first stage under its own power, as SpaceX does, or flown a complete recovered stage again.
BLUE ORIGIN
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin in the U.S. has developed New Shepard, a rocket that takes paying passengers and experiments briefly into space and then comes back down.
The New Shepard booster returns to Earth and lands vertically so it can be used again, but it does not go fast enough to reach orbit.
Last month, Blue Origin became the second company to achieve orbital booster reuse during the second mission of its New Glenn rocket, following a decade in development.
New Glenn is one of a handful of rockets picked by Amazon to deploy its low-earth-orbit internet constellation, previously called Project Kuiper, another satellite network that would rival Starlink.
INDIA
India’s space agency, ISRO, has tested a small winged vehicle called Pushpak that is dropped from a helicopter and glides back to Earth, acting as a test for future reusable systems. India has not yet landed or reused the main stage of a rocket that has gone into orbit.
OTHER CHINESE FIRMS
Several Chinese private companies besides LandSpace, including Space Epoch, Deep Blue Aerospace and Galactic Energy, have carried out test flights in which small rocket stages fly straight up to heights of hundreds or thousands of metres, then come back down and land upright.
These “hop” tests are meant to practise the take-off and landing needed for reuse. None of these firms has yet landed the main stage of a rocket that has flown to space.
EUROPE
In Europe, ArianeGroup and the European Space Agency are working on a test rocket stage called Themis that is expected to make short up-and-down flights and then land back on Earth, to prepare for future reusable launchers. Europe has not yet flown a rocket to orbit and then recovered its main stage for reuse.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
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