Zhuque-3, Long March 10B Aiming for Booster Recovery in July

- LandSpace is a Beijing-based private aerospace company, one of China's most advanced commercial launch startups. Its Zhuque-3 is a stainless-steel, methane-fueled rocket that strongly resembles SpaceX's Starship — it uses a "grid-fin"-guided booster recovery system and aims to land its first stage on a barge at sea. Zhuque-3 is designed to be reusable, which would drastically lower launch costs. - Long March 10B is a new human-rated rocket from CASC (China's state-owned space conglomerate). It is being developed for China's crewed Moon missions (targeting 2030). The big deal is that CASC has never landed a rocket booster before, unlike SpaceX, which has done it hundreds of times. If the Long March 10B succeeds, it would mark the first **reusable launch** by China's mainstream state space program. - Why this matters: China is racing to catch up to SpaceX in reusability, which is the key technology behind cheap, high-cadence space access. These two tests — one private (LandSpace), one state-run (CASC) — represent parallel Chinese bets on reusable rockets. Success would signal that China is closing the gap with the US in commercial launch capability.