# China joins US in reusable rocket race with LandSpace success 2026-08-25T17:54:43+00:00 | World & Diplomacy | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet Chinese private space company LandSpace has successfully recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket after an orbital launch, landing the booster at a designated site in Gansu on August 19. It is China's first successful land-based recovery of an orbital-class rocket by a private company, following an earlier success in July where a rocket stage was recovered using a net on a sea platform. The achievement places China alongside the US in a club dominated by SpaceX. Reusable rockets change the economics of spaceflight by allowing the most expensive parts of the launch vehicle to be recovered and flown again. A Nasa analysis of SpaceX's Falcon 9 found the average cost of a flight using a new booster was around $65 million, compared with about $50 million when a previously flown booster was used. Reusability also enables more frequent launches since recovered boosters can be prepared faster than building new ones from scratch. ## Indian Opinion Analysis India's own reusable rocket programme, the Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), conducted its first landing experiment in 2023. ISRO has tested a winged body that glides back to land, rather than the vertical landing approach used by SpaceX and now LandSpace. The cost of putting a kilogram into low Earth orbit using a fully reusable system could fall below $2,000, compared with the current $5,000-10,000 range for expendable rockets. ISRO's next RLV-TD landing test is expected within the next 12-18 months. ISRO's Next RLV-TD landing test is expected within the next 12-18 months. ## Coverage - timesofindia.indiatimes.com Explains reusable rocket technology and China's achievement without editorialising This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: China, ISRO, LandSpace, reusable rocket, SpaceX, Zhuque-3 Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/china-joins-us-in-reusable-rocket-race-with-landspace-success/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/china-joins-us-in-reusable-rocket-race-with-landspace-success/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/