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LandSpace, a Beijing-based private space company, launched its 66-metre Zhuque-3 Y2 rocket on 19 August 2026 and vertically landed the first-stage booster.
The mission placed the Honghu-3 commercial internet satellite in its designated orbit and marked China's first recovery of an orbital-class booster on land.
Lift-off was at 7:35 a.m. Beijing time from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone; the booster touched down about six minutes later in Minqin County, Gansu, roughly 390 km away.
LandSpace became the third entity worldwide to recover an orbital-class booster, after SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Residual propellant ignited shortly after touchdown, and the resulting fire damaged the landing-gear area and caused the stainless-steel booster to collapse.
LandSpace's earlier vehicle became, in July 2023, the first rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane to reach orbit anywhere in the world, ahead of SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn.
LandSpace is seeking to raise 7.5 billion yuan through an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market and has set a profitability target for 2029.
ISRO has been pursuing reusability through the Reusable Launch Vehicle autonomous landing experiments, which test the winged-body glide-and-land approach rather than the vertical propulsive landing used by Zhuque-3.
GS Paper 3 > Awareness in the Field of Space; Achievements of Indians and Foreigners in Science and Technology
General Awareness > Science and Technology Current Affairs
General Awareness > Science and Technology
General Awareness > Space and Strategic Technology
A first stage powerful enough to help place a payload into orbit, as distinct from a suborbital vehicle that goes up and comes straight back.
The propellant combination of liquid methane and liquid oxygen, favoured for reusable rockets because it burns more cleanly than kerosene and leaves less soot in the engine.
The region of space roughly 160 to 2,000 km above the Earth's surface, where most commercial satellite constellations operate.