Reusable rocket milestone opens a door for Hong Kong’s space ambitions

On the morning of August 19, LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 Y2 rocket lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Area. After deploying its second stage and payload into orbit, the rocket’s first stage touched down softly at a recovery site in Gansu province using deployable landing legs.It was China’s first successful land-based recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster that had just completed an orbital mission – a feat previously achieved only by SpaceX.Just over a month earlier, on July 10, state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corpartion recovered the first stage of a Long March-10B rocket using a sea-based net system. In less than six weeks, China displayed two distinct recovery methods – a rapid succession of milestones that underscores the country’s space ambitions.