Overview
- LandSpace's Zhuque‑3 lifted off from Jiuquan and delivered the Honghu‑03 satellite to orbit, and its first stage made a vertical soft landing on legs at a downrange pad during the vehicle's second flight on Aug. 18–19, 2026.
- The company said it fixed problems from the December 2025 debut by cutting engines used in the landing burn, adding a predicted‑landing‑point to the autonomous safety system, and boosting thermal protection to survive reentry heating.
- Zhuque‑3 is a two‑stage, stainless‑steel rocket powered by liquid methane and oxygen with nine first‑stage engines and a reported LEO capacity of roughly 21,000 kg expendable or about 18,300 kg when recovering the booster.
- LandSpace announced it will move from verification to engineering‑scale reuse, aims to fly a recovered booster again within about six months, and targets up to roughly 20 reuses per booster as it pursues a STAR Market listing.
- The touchdown joins China’s recent sea‑capture recovery of a Long March 10B and puts LandSpace in a small global group of companies that have landed orbital boosters, a step that could lower launch costs and speed satellite deployment for large constellations.