Simply minutes after lifting off on its maiden voyage, a Lengthy March 10B booster was recovered by a net-rigged ship at sea — a milestone in China’s race to meet up with SpaceX.
The Lengthy March 10B climbs into a transparent sky over the Wenchang Industrial House Launch Website on July 10, 2026, moments after liftoff. Minutes later, the rocket’s first-stage booster returned to Earth and was caught by a net-rigged restoration ship within the South China Sea, marking China’s first profitable restoration of an orbital-class booster. Credit score: CNSA/Meng Yuan
On July 10, China netted a brand new accomplishment in its spacefaring historical past. The China Aerospace Science and Know-how Company (CASC) efficiently recovered the booster of an orbital rocket solely minutes after launch — a primary for the nation because it races to shut the hole between SpaceX’s decade-long head begin in booster reuse and its personal.
The Lengthy March 10B lifted off from the Wenchang Industrial House Launch Website on Hainan Island. About 10 minutes later, its booster descended towards the South China Sea, the place the ship Linghangzhe was ready. Hooks on the booster’s exterior snagged a gridlike internet of cables stretched throughout the vessel’s deck, leaving the smoking booster suspended in mid air. The rocket’s higher stage continued on, delivering an undisclosed payload cataloged as CX-26 to low-Earth orbit (LEO). The China Nationwide House Administration (CNSA) known as the launch a “full success” and “the world’s first profitable sea-based net-based restoration of a service rocket” in a press release.
Catching as much as SpaceX
This accomplishment is a very long time coming. China has spent the previous 12 months and a half racing to meet up with SpaceX, whose reusable Falcon 9 has flown almost 700 instances. Two earlier makes an attempt got here up quick. LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 reached orbit in December however its booster crashed after experiencing “abnormal combustion” throughout restoration. A Lengthy March 12A booster misplaced management on descent that very same month. Final Friday’s success is the primary time China has caught the touchdown.
China’s success with the Lengthy March 10B places three distinct strategies of booster restoration on the desk. Legs are essentially the most confirmed of the three: SpaceX first landed a Falcon 9 booster this fashion on Dec. 21, 2015, and Blue Origin has adopted the identical method twice — first with its suborbital New Shepard on Nov. 23, 2015, and once more with its orbital New Glenn, which caught a touchdown for the primary time on Nov. 13, 2025. SpaceX debuted a second methodology in 2024, catching its far bigger Starship booster with mechanical arms mounted on the launch tower itself on Oct. 13 that 12 months. Now, China’s internet system is the third.
How the web works
The advanced sport of catch begins whereas the rocket remains to be greater than 62 miles (100 kilometers) up. 4 titanium grid fins unfold on the falling booster, permitting it to rotate and steer itself towards the ship. A braking burn slows the descent, with onboard steerage constantly correcting course. Beneath, the Linghangzhe holds its internet regular in opposition to wind and present utilizing a dynamic positioning system, whereas each ship and booster commerce real-time navigation information to line up the catch.
The design is centered round the concept that shedding the legs trims sufficient weight to earn again payload capability: “Web-based restoration simplifies the onboard construction, reduces weight, and boosts payload capability,” stated Chen Muye of CASC, according to Xinhua. Web seize, he added, additionally tolerates extra touchdown imprecision, for the reason that ship and its cables can alter in actual time to catch a booster that comes down barely off beam.
The Lengthy March 10 household
The Lengthy March 10B stands 209 ft (63.6 meters) tall and 16 ft (5 m) huge, burns kerosene via seven first-stage engines and methane via one second-stage engine, and may haul about 16 metric tons to LEO — slightly below Falcon 9’s 22-metric-ton capability. CASC has pitched the rocket mainly as a workhorse for deploying China’s expanding satellite constellations and different business payloads, aiming to chop launch prices and help the cadence these constellations will demand.
The Lengthy March 10B’s first stage is an identical to the one on the Lengthy March 10A, which accomplished its personal sea-based restoration check in February, making Friday’s flight a joint verification for each automobiles, according to China National Radio (CNR). The 10A is being constructed as China’s next-generation crewed launcher for journeys to the nation’s area station, Tiangong; the 10B pairs that booster with a brand new liquid oxygen-methane second stage aimed on the business market. A 3rd sibling, the Lengthy March 10C, is already in improvement, mating a bigger methane-fueled first stage to the 10B’s upper-stage engine.
All three Lengthy March 10 variants share the identical diameter and a modular design, an method Yang Yuguang of the Worldwide Astronautical Federation’s House Transportation Committee stated “marks China’s service rockets formally coming into a brand new period of reusability,” per CNR. A separate, heavier model of the Lengthy March 10 can also be being developed for China’s crewed lunar program, with a goal of touchdown astronauts on the Moon earlier than 2030, in response to Ars Technica.
This is step one of many towards a totally reusable Chinese language launch fleet — one constructed to loft satellite tv for pc constellations, ferry astronauts to Tiangong, and finally attain the Moon. Time will inform whether or not internet seize proves to be a aggressive different to legs, and whether or not it permits China to unlock the speedy launch cadence that reusable boosters have delivered for SpaceX.
Brooks Mendenhall is a employees author for Astronomy journal and is predicated in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
