China has achieved its first successful land based recovery of a rocket booster. At 7:35 am on Wednesday, the Zhuque 3 Y2 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and six minutes later its first stage, more than 40 meters tall, landed upright on a concrete pad in Minqin county, Gansu province.
A close look at the landing pad
We visited the site, set on the edge of the Gobi Desert. Landing upright on solid ground demands far greater precision than a traditional sea landing, and it means the booster can be retrieved, inspected and readied for reuse much faster, a step widely seen as a sign that reusable rocket technology in China is maturing.
The Zhuque 3 Y2 rocket used in the mission was built by LandSpace, a private Chinese rocket company, and the recovery marks the latest step in a wave of reusable launch vehicle tests by the country's commercial space sector. The new land route between the Jiuquan launch site and the Minqin landing pad also gives outside observers a clearer view of how far Chinese commercial rocket firms have come on cost control and launch frequency.
