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Ling Xin

China’s successful recovery of a reusable rocket has sparked debate among aerospace experts over whether its unconventional approach could actually cut the cost of reaching space.
On Friday, the country’s Long March-10B became the first orbital-class rocket outside the United States to return to Earth and be recovered intact. The rocket’s first-stage booster deployed four hooks as it descended and was then caught by a giant net on a ship waiting in the South China Sea.
SpaceX and Blue Origin do not use nets – they use what is known as landing legs to recover their reusable boosters.
The Chinese approach eliminates heavy landing gear, making the rocket lighter and allowing it to carry more payload into orbit, according to its developer, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT).


But neither the CALT nor state media have disclosed the cost of building and operating the vessel used to recover the rocket booster.
The advanced gear used by the 144-metre (472ft), 25,000-tonne Linghangzhe ranges from a high-precision dynamic positioning system that keeps the ship in place at sea to laser sensors that track the real-time position and orientation of the descending rocket.
“I suspect that ship costs a lot of money,” said a Beijing-based rocket engineer working on another reusable rocket project, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.
He added that unlike SpaceX’s drone ship – which is essentially a floating landing platform – the Linghangzhe had sophisticated equipment that needed regular inspections and maintenance.
“After all, the whole point of reusability is to reduce costs,” he said. “If you end up spending a lot of money to make it reusable, doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
Jonathan McDowell, a space historian based near London and former Harvard astronomer, said the vessel was “capital intensive” but it would likely work out cheaper in the long run, adding that the approach played to China’s strengths in shipbuilding.
He said that using a net to capture the booster at sea made sense because it put “more of the hardware on the thing that stays on Earth, and less on the thing that goes to space”.
But McDowell said the idea might not work as well for rockets taking off from the moon or Mars in the future.
“For now it seems to have promise, if they show they can do it reliably and repeatedly,” he said.

Linghangzhe is China’s first officially certified rocket recovery vessel, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Xu Xuelei, of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told the broadcaster that the vessel’s capture tower – at 67 metres high and weighing 5,600 tonnes – was one of the biggest engineering challenges in designing the ship.
In its reusable configuration, the Long March-10B can deliver 16 tonnes to a 200km (124-mile) low-Earth orbit or 11 tonnes to a 900km orbit inclined at 50 degrees – altitudes planned for China’s satellite broadband mega-constellations, according to the report.


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China used a giant net to land a reusable rocket. Does the idea have legs?

The Long March-10B rocket booster is safely recovered in the South China Sea on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

The cost of building and operating the Linghangzhe has not been disclosed. Photo: Xing Guangli/Xinhua via AP

Long March-10B: China’s net-capture rocket joins space race with edge on SpaceX

China has succeeded in recovering the reusable rocket used in the maiden launch of the Long March-10B. Photo: Weibo/萌虎鲸

The two-stage Long March-10B’s first stage is powered by seven YF-100K engines that burn kerosene and liquid oxygen. Photo: CCTV

The Long March-10B reusable rocket recovery on Friday marks China’s first controlled orbital-class booster recovery. Photo: Xinhua

In the final landing phase, the net-and-cable device absorbs the rocket’s remaining energy for a soft landing. Photo: CCTV

The flight on Friday aimed to validate key technologies for the more powerful crewed lunar variant, Long March-10. Photo: Weibo/空天逐梦

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A Long March-10B carrier rocket blasts off from a commercial spacecraft launch site in Wenchang, south China’s Hainan province, on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

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A drone photo shows the capturing of the returned first stage of the Long March-10B carrier rocket on a seaborne platform via a net-capture system, near Wenchang in southern China’s Hainan province on July 10. Photo: Xinhua via AP 

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The Long March-10B carrier that made history in China, pictured launching from Wenchang in the southern Hainan province on July 10. Photo: AFP

China’s historic sea-based rocket recovery puts spotlight on domestic shipbuilder

This drone photo taken last Friday shows the successful capture of the returned first stage of a Long March-10B carrier rocket on a seaborne platform. Photo: Xinhua

News

China

It’s an unconventional approach that has sparked debate over how it stacks up against America’s landing-leg system


It’s an unconventional approach that has sparked debate over how it stacks up against America’s landing-leg system.


China used a giant net to land a reusable rocket. Does the idea have legs?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}It’s an unconventional approach that has sparked debate over how it stacks up against America’s landing-leg system

It’s an unconventional approach that has sparked debate over how it stacks up against America’s landing-leg system