Zhuque-3 is a partially reusable Chinese rocket built by LandSpace. It burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen, and its first stage lands on four legs. On 18 August 2026, during its second flight, it became China’s first orbital-class booster to touch down on legs instead of being caught or dropped into the sea.
Roughly the size of a Falcon 9, Zhuque-3 is designed for the same basic job: launch a satellite, recover the expensive part of the rocket, and fly it again.
Its importance lies less in what it can carry than in what it demonstrates. For decades, China’s state-run launch program relied on rockets that were discarded after a single flight. Zhuque-3 is the first privately built Chinese vehicle to prove the recovery side of the reusable-launch equation.
Zhuque-3 Is Built from Stainless Steel
Zhuque-3’s tanks are stainless steel, not the aluminum-lithium alloy used on most launch vehicles. Steel is heavier per unit of strength, which costs payload. It is also far cheaper per ton, tolerates reentry heating better, and can be welded in an ordinary industrial shop instead of an aerospace clean room. SpaceX made the same trade on Starship for the same reasons.
That choice shapes the economics LandSpace is chasing. A booster built from commodity steel is cheap enough to risk on a landing attempt, and cheap enough to write off if the attempt fails. An aluminum booster of the same size is not.
The propellant choice follows the same logic. Methane and liquid oxygen burn cleanly enough that engines need less scrubbing between flights than kerosene engines, which leave soot in the turbomachinery. Less soot means a faster turnaround, which is the whole point of keeping the stage.
Zhuque-3 Specifications
| Measure | Zhuque-3 (flying version) | ZQ-3E (stretched variant) |
|---|---|---|
| Height | About 65.9 meters | About 76.2 meters |
| Diameter | 4.5 meters | 4.5 meters |
| Liftoff mass | About 550 metric tons | About 654 metric tons |
| First-stage engines | Nine TQ-12A, 7,200 kN at sea level | Nine TQ-12B, 9,000 kN at sea level |
| Second-stage engine | One TQ-15A | One TQ-15B |
| Payload to 450 km, expendable | 11,800 kg | 21,300 kg |
| Payload with downrange recovery | 8,000 kg | 18,300 kg |
| Payload with return to launch site | Not published | 12,500 kg |
| Structure | Stainless steel | Stainless steel |
| Launch site | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Site 96 | Jiuquan |
The gap between the expendable and recovered numbers is the price of reuse. Bringing the stage home costs about a third of the payload on the current vehicle, because propellant that could have pushed a satellite higher is spent flying the booster back instead.
How LandSpace Reached Zhuque-3
LandSpace built its way to Zhuque-3 through two earlier vehicles, and the engine is the thread running through all three. Zhuque-1, a small solid-fuel rocket, failed to reach orbit in 2018. Zhuque-2 followed in 2023 and became the first methane-fueled rocket of any nationality to reach orbit, beating both SpaceX and Blue Origin to that particular milestone. It flew on the TQ-12, the same engine family that now powers Zhuque-3’s first stage in a nine-engine cluster.
That lineage explains the pace. LandSpace did not have to prove a new propellant combination while also proving a landing, because Zhuque-2 had already flown the engine to orbit several times. Clustering nine of them and adding grid fins, legs, and a relight capability was the remaining work.
The Flight Record So Far
Zhuque-3 has flown twice, and the two flights split cleanly between failure and success on the landing.
- Y1, 3 December 2025. The rocket reached orbit with a mass simulator. The landing attempt failed after what LandSpace described as abnormal combustion during the landing burn, and the booster was lost.
- Y2, 18 August 2026. The rocket lifted off from the Dongfeng commercial zone at Jiuquan, delivered the Honghu-03 satellite to orbit, and flew the first stage back to a recovery site in Minqin County, Gansu, about 390 kilometers downrange. The stage landed upright on its legs.
Both flights reached orbit, which is a separate result from the landing. A rocket that lands but does not deliver its payload has failed at the job it was paid for.
The Booster Toppled After It Landed
The Zhuque-3 booster tipped over some time after it landed. Video and photographs reviewed by Spaceflight Now show the stage settling and leaning before a fire spread during the offloading of leftover methane and liquid oxygen, apparently weakening one leg and its supporting piston until the vehicle fell.
That changes what the flight proves. Setting a stage down on target is a guidance and propulsion result. Getting that stage onto a transporter, back to a factory, and through inspection is a ground-operations result, and it usually costs reuse programs their schedule. LandSpace has said it wants to refly the recovered stage within six months, per SpaceNews. Damage from the fall makes that harder to read.
How Zhuque-3 Compares to Falcon 9
| Measure | Zhuque-3 | Falcon 9 |
|---|---|---|
| Builder | LandSpace | SpaceX |
| First orbital flight | December 2025 | 2010 |
| Height | About 65.9 meters | About 70 meters |
| Propellant | Methane and liquid oxygen | Kerosene and liquid oxygen |
| Payload to LEO, expendable | 11,800 kg | Roughly 22,000 kg |
| Boosters landed | One, in August 2026 | Several hundred |
| Boosters reflown | None yet | Routine, sometimes within weeks |
Falcon 9 carries roughly twice as much and has a reuse record measured in hundreds of flights. Zhuque-3 has one landing. LandSpace is building toward the same operating model, roughly fifteen years behind on flight hours.
What Zhuque-3 Is Meant to Cost
LandSpace has said the goal is to bring Chinese launch prices down from about 100,000 yuan per kilogram to roughly 20,000 yuan per kilogram. Nothing published so far shows the rocket hitting that. The figure describes a target that depends entirely on flying the same booster many times, which has not happened yet.
Costs across China’s commercial launch sector are covered in more depth on the Chinese rocket launch cost page, including the published prices for Long March missions.
Who Should Watch This and Who Should Not
Anyone tracking launch capacity, satellite deployment rates, or the cost of getting mass to orbit has a reason to follow Zhuque-3, because a working reusable Chinese medium-lift rocket changes how fast China’s satellite constellations can be filled. Readers looking for a crewed or lunar vehicle should look elsewhere: Zhuque-3 is a satellite launcher, and China’s crewed Moon plans ride on the state-built Long March 10.
What Would Change the Picture
One event would settle the open question: a Zhuque-3 booster flying a second orbital mission. Until a recovered stage is inspected, refurbished, and reflown, the program has demonstrated a landing rather than reuse, and the cost claims stay hypothetical. A second data point matters too. If flights three and four also land cleanly, the August result reads as a repeatable procedure instead of a good day.
To follow the next attempt, check LandSpace’s site for the Zhuque-3 flight schedule, and compare the outcome against the reuse record on the China reusable rockets page.