China Lands Its First Orbital Rocket Booster—A Giant Leap Towards Reusable Spaceflight
For decades rockets have largely been treated as one-use machines launching payloads into space before their expensive hardware falls back to Earth That equation is changing China has now achieved a major milestone in its reusable-spaceflight ambitions with private space company LandSpace successfully recovering the first stage of its Zhuque- rocket on land The -metre rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert at around a m local time on Wednesday carrying a Honghu- internet satellite into its designated orbit Then came the remarkable part After completing its job the rocket s nine-engine first stage began its journey back to Earth It performed a controlled descent and landed vertically at a designated recovery site in Minqin county Gansu province roughly kilometres from the launch site It marked China s first successful land-based recovery of an orbital rocket s first stage Why Landing the Booster MattersA
