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.
Up Close: Inside China's First Land Based Rocket Recovery Site
The Zhuque 3 Y2 rocket lifted off from Jiuquan on Wednesday, and six minutes later its first stage landed upright on a concrete pad in Minqin, Gansu province, marking China's first successful land recovery of a rocket booster. We visited the landing site on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
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.
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