The United States is the only country routinely flying reusable orbital rockets on a commercial schedule. China, India, the European Space Agency (ESA), and Russia are each testing or developing recovery hardware of their own, while Japan has yet to fly a reusable orbital vehicle. Since 2015, SpaceX alone has landed and reflown boosters hundreds of times. Every other national program discussed here remains in the single-digit test-flight stage or earlier.
| Country or Bloc | Leading Programs | Status as of 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Falcon 9, Starship, New Glenn, Neutron | Falcon 9 reuse is routine, the others are in testing |
| China | Zhuque-3 (Landspace), Nebula-1 (Deep Blue Aerospace) | One commercial land landing achieved, other tests ongoing |
| India | RLV-TD “Pushpak,” RHUMI-1 | Small-scale landing demonstrations, no orbital reuse yet |
| Europe (ESA) | Themis, Callisto | Ground testing complete, flight tests not yet flown |
| Japan | JAXA/Mitsubishi Heavy Industries next-gen rocket, RV-X | Early hover tests, no orbital reusable flight yet |
| Russia | Amur (Amur-LNG), Roscosmos / Progress Space Rocket Center | In development, no flight test yet; original 2026 target already slipped |
The United States Leads in Flight-Proven Hardware
The United States is the only country with reusable rockets flying commercial missions today. SpaceX has recovered and reflown Falcon 9 boosters on nearly every mission since 2020, and it is now testing full reuse of both stages on Starship. The Falcon 9 explainer covers that landing sequence step by step. Blue Origin designed its New Glenn first stage to land on a ship at sea. Rocket Lab uses a similar approach for its smaller Electron booster, and it is building the larger Neutron to be reusable from the start. No other country has a company flying at this pace.
China Is Testing Recovery Across Several Companies
China does not have an operational reusable orbital rocket yet. Several of its private launch companies are testing recovery hardware anyway. Landspace flew a 10-kilometer vertical takeoff and landing test of its Zhuque-3 test article in September 2024. The 200-second flight included the first secondary engine ignition ever tried in a Chinese vertical landing test. On the production rocket’s first orbital launch, the booster reached orbit with its payload but was lost during descent, after what Landspace described as abnormal combustion. A later flight went better: Landspace recovered a Zhuque-3 first stage on land, a first for a Chinese commercial launch provider. Deep Blue Aerospace has run its own landing tests with its Nebula-1 rocket, including at least one attempt that ended in a crash landing during final descent. China’s state-run launch industry is reported to be developing reusable rocket variants too. Public detail on a flight schedule remains scarce next to the commercial sector.
India Has Flown Small-Scale Landing Demonstrations
India has not flown a reusable orbital rocket, but its space agency has completed a series of landing tests aimed at that goal. ISRO’s Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator, nicknamed Pushpak, has completed three landing experiments since 2023. The most recent test flew in June 2024. A Chinook helicopter released the winged vehicle at 4.5 kilometers. It flew itself down to a runway landing at more than 320 kilometers per hour. Its parachute and brakes then slowed it to a stop. ISRO reused the same airframe and flight systems from the prior test without modification, a step toward proving the hardware can fly more than once. This program lands horizontally on a runway, a different method from the vertical landings SpaceX and Blue Origin use.
Separately, Space Zone India, working with the Martin Group, launched a small hybrid-fueled suborbital rocket called RHUMI-1 in August 2024. It deployed three cube satellites and dozens of smaller pico satellites, then came down by parachute. RHUMI-1 is a small-scale, privately funded demonstrator. It is not a government orbital launch vehicle, and it carries neither the altitude nor the payload of ISRO’s own program.
Europe Is Building Two Separate Demonstrators
The European Space Agency is funding two reusable rocket demonstrators rather than one, each testing a different part of the problem. Its Themis program is built by ArianeGroup around the Prometheus engine. The demonstrator finished assembly at the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden after a roughly 3,000-kilometer journey by boat and truck. Themis is designed to fly low-altitude hop tests and prove vertical landing before any orbital vehicle uses the technology. A second program, Callisto, is a joint effort between France’s CNES, Germany’s DLR, and Japan’s JAXA, built at a smaller scale than Themis. Callisto’s first flight has slipped from an original 2026 target to 2027, while component testing continues in France and Germany. Neither demonstrator has flown yet. ESA’s own Themis program page carries the most current status, since both efforts report progress often.
Japan Has Not Yet Flown a Reusable Orbital Rocket
Japan has not flown a reusable orbital rocket, and its programs sit earlier in testing than the four covered above. JAXA, working with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, completed a short flight test of its RV-X demonstrator at the Noshiro Rocket Testing Center. The vehicle lifted off, hovered, and landed back on its pad in about 40 seconds. The two organizations are now designing a larger, next-generation reusable rocket. It aims to cut the cost per kilogram to low Earth orbit roughly in half compared with Japan’s current H3 rocket, with a target date in the 2030s. Outside the government program, the private company Interstellar Technologies has reached space three times with its suborbital MOMO rocket. Toyota invested $44.3 million in Interstellar Technologies in early 2025. It has not flown an orbital vehicle of any kind. Japan’s government has set a goal of roughly 30 domestic launches a year by the early 2030s. That target depends on both the JAXA-led program and private companies like Interstellar succeeding.
Russia Has a Reusable Rocket in Development, Not Yet Flown
Russia has not flown an operational reusable orbital rocket. Its work on launcher recovery centers on Amur, also called Amur-LNG, developed by state space corporation Roscosmos together with the Progress Space Rocket Center. Planned to launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, Amur is a partially reusable, two-stage rocket with methane-fueled engines designed to support up to 100 flights per booster.
Development has moved slowly. TASS originally reported a target to launch the first reusable rocket with a payload by 2026, but that timeline slipped after technical specifications received approval in June 2025. On July 28, 2025, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Bakanov told The Moscow Times that Amur was on an 18-to-24-month development schedule measured from that June milestone.
Bakanov acknowledged that SpaceX’s first-stage reuse has “led to significant savings and increased efficiency,” noting that China and Japan have also developed reusable first stages. Addressing the schedule, Bakanov said that “thorough and quality development is of the utmost importance,” adding: “While it would be possible to attempt a test in the immediate future, the results would not be satisfactory.” Unlike Chinese prototypes tracked in the China reusable rockets guide, Russia’s Amur has not yet begun flight testing.
Landing a Rocket Is Not the Same as Flying It Again
A rocket that survives landing has only cleared the first hurdle toward reuse. Recovery proves the hardware can come down in one piece. Reuse proves it can be refurbished quickly enough, and cheaply enough, to fly a second mission without becoming a new build in disguise. That second step is why several of the programs above count as testing recovery rather than flying reusable rockets. A single landing shows the concept works. Real reuse needs repeated, low-cost turnarounds that change the economics of an entire launch program. Falcon 9 crossed that line years ago. Every other program covered here is still working toward it.
The reusable rockets explainer walks through exactly how a booster lands itself, from grid fins to the final engine burn. It covers the same sequence SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab now fly routinely.