China has done it: the first stage of the launch vehicle has successfully been recovered.
At noon on July 10, China's Long March 10B carrier rocket was launched into space. About six minutes after the separation of the first and second stages, the first stage returned vertically and was successfully recovered on a maritime recovery platform using a net-based capture system—marking a major success for the recovery mission.
For years, the only proven approach to reusable rockets worldwide was SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which uses four landing legs and performs a hard landing via engine retro-thrust onto a floating barge at sea—a route universally recognized as the mature standard.
However, China’s Long March 10B has now broken away from this established path, completely eliminating the heavy landing legs traditionally used on rockets. Instead of relying on the rocket stabilizing itself upon landing, it adopts a massive grid-patterned cushioning net deployed on a maritime recovery vessel. The rocket is captured by hooks, and its descent is decelerated and cushioned by the flexible net structure—achieving the world’s first successful net-based capture and recovery of an orbital launch vehicle at sea. This marks the emergence of an entirely new Chinese branch in global rocket recovery technology, with no direct copying of Western mature solutions, representing genuine technological innovation.
More importantly, Falcon 9 required over ten test flights before achieving stable first-stage recovery—experiencing multiple failed attempts, including rocket crashes and boat destruction—before finally reaching reliability through repeated trial and error.
In contrast, this Long March 10B mission marked the rocket’s maiden flight. It simultaneously delivered its payload precisely into orbit and, after six minutes, guided its first stage back through the atmosphere, flying hundreds of kilometers across to the South China Sea recovery zone, where it was smoothly caught by the net system. The entire process—from launch, orbital insertion, atmospheric re-entry, guidance, to dynamic offshore capture—was completed in one single flight.
Without prior extensive testing or iterative failures, this first flight achieved full-loop closure—an extremely rare feat in the history of reusable rocket maiden missions—and dramatically surpasses international industry norms in R&D iteration efficiency.
Previously, China had only conducted small-scale low-altitude recovery tests or splashdown trials of rocket debris at sea, lacking full-chain engineering validation for large liquid-fueled launch vehicles—including formal launch, orbital separation, atmospheric re-entry, and precise point recovery. This mission now fills the most critical gap in China’s large-capacity reusable launch vehicle development, marking China as the second country in the world—after the United States—to master reusable technologies for medium- and larger-sized liquid-fueled rockets. The long-standing barrier to cost-effective commercial satellite constellations has thus been fundamentally broken.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1870311250558985/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.