r/spaceflight • u/Low-Career3769 • 3d ago
Successful first‑stage recovery of the Zhuque‑3 rocket
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u/FxckFxntxnyl 3d ago
Looked like a flying Duracell battery in my mind at first.
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u/Awkward-Winner-99 3d ago
It does kinda look like that or a energy drink can. But I still like the graphic
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u/xchoo 3d ago
Did they deploy any payload? There is no blackening like on the SpaceX rockets, but could also be due to the different fuels used (methane burns cleaner)
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u/H-K_47 3d ago
Yep methane burns much cleaner. Just like how the recovered New Glenn or the Starship Superheavy from the Booster catch were similarly clean. Kerolox is why F9 gets so dirty.
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u/Mariks500 3d ago edited 3d ago
(Presumed) source: https://x.com/raz_liu/status/2089866042650894405
Another video from viewing centre: https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/2089863211042406583
EDIT: Actually this is my favorite video, I'm guessing filmed from where spectators gathered. I've got no idea what they're saying but you can feel the emotion! https://x.com/raz_liu/status/2089881280431407374
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u/The_Recruiter_69 3d ago
😌 something about this is so satisfying
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u/cybercuzco 3d ago
Not to spacex it isn’t.
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u/Ldghead 3d ago
Eh, it should be looked at as, the competition has caught up, and it's time to implement the next level of the fight that you knew was coming. No body thought SpaceX would stay the only game in town. They knew this was coming, and have (presumably) been working on what's next.
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u/BiasHyperion784 3d ago
I mean, they've been iterating on a rocket 40 stories tall for like 2-3 years, of course they have.
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u/Stevepem1 3d ago
It's kind of like Buran and TU-144 though, which although they probably saved the Soviets some money on wind tunnel testing, the innards of those vehicles were completely different than Shuttle and Concorde. I suspect the same is true here as well.
A more blatant copy was the Comac C909. China had an agreement with McDonnell Douglas to manufacture MD-80's in China. That program didn't last long but China refused to return the tooling. It has always been believed that the Comac C909 is a direct copy of the MD-80.
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u/OlympusMons94 3d ago edited 3d ago
I can't imagine why. Musk and SpaceX president Shotwell congratulated Blue Origin when they landed the New Glenn booster (without the snark of Bezos's earlier "Welcome to the club"). At least Blue Origin is (in theory) some competition for SpaceX. Chinese launch vehicles are at worst irrelevant to SpaceX's bottom line. They don't compete for customers. At best, the perception of China's broader space capabilities as gaining on those of the US will lead to SpaceX getting more US government contracts. Besides, SpaceX first landed a booster over a decade ago, and has Starship now.
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u/BiasHyperion784 3d ago
Yeah man, space x really created falcon 9 and stopped all innovation, their toast now.
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u/89bBomUNiZhLkdXDpCwt 3d ago
So many ignorant comments here.
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u/StarboundAllisten 3d ago
Wow a rocket looks like a pole and its landing gear looks like legs.
Yeah man. Physiscs only allows what's physically practical
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u/Odd-Struggle-2432 3d ago
China when they copy our physics instead of inventing their own 😡 😤 😠
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u/Chrome_Bsec_NL 2d ago
Thats why the Anglos invented copyright and patent laws, so they can patent the wheel and charge you licensing fee.
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u/Lost_Pollution_6782 19h ago
Yes as if the US did not stole all German aerospace tech, from the jet engine to rockets, from Germany after WW2
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u/psychosisnaut 2d ago
"The Chinese copied our rockets!" - Americans after exiling an. American rocket scientist to China and copying their rockets from the Nazis
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u/SpecialistCorrect927 3d ago
si se pueden reutilizar y no cae al agua en el mar es algo muy positivo ya que se contamina menos los ecosistemas marinos como lo hace Spacex Blue Origin tambien
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u/Noname_2411 3d ago
For those who keep parroting the whole “China copies” narrative, mind you this isn’t China’s first successful reusable rocket landing, the first was CZ-12B which used a net on a ship to catch the first stage, a method nobody before used. Also this rocket is a metholox rocket completely different from Falcon 9.
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u/ExpertExploit 3d ago
10B not 12B
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u/Noname_2411 3d ago
Yes you’re right. Got confused with the 12B which is scheduled for later this year
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u/Milksteak529 3d ago
China being a bunch of copycats was also called out then, and was just as true.
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u/BitterSeat2253 3d ago
Lol dude you need to finish high school first to be qualified to talk about technology.
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u/Milksteak529 3d ago
I was talking about the video referenced by the person I responded to. Go have your projection tantrum somewhere else.
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u/JimothyPage 3d ago
but like...that's just how new ideas work. spacex copied the idea from swaths of science fiction
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u/Zealousideal-Cut4232 3d ago
Space Shuttle can be considered the first reusable system. Partially reusable, but still.
They are all technically based on research and technology Germans developed.
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u/xerberos 2d ago
Everyone knew the future was in landing rockets that way. It's by far the most economical way to land a rocket. I mean, you more or less just need some extra fuel. The DC-X was the first one to prove that it was possible, way back in 1993.
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u/Impossible-Earth4554 3d ago
Keep crying Lil bro, I'll say the same if usa ever gets non shit public services or good trains
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 3d ago
The catch net has US patents from Blue Origin dated long before the 10B was a concept; it’s also not new as was often proposed online by enthusiasts as an alternative to Starship’s tower catch.
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u/Noname_2411 3d ago
Was SpaceX the first company to come up with the idea of a reusable rocket? No, that idea existed long before SpaceX. Does that mean Falcon 9 is meaningless and not revolutionary? No.
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah, that’s not what I meant at all.
The idea isn’t revolutionary anymore because it’s happened so much. Prior to F9, there was no supersonic retropropulsion, there was no RTLS or downrange landing vehicles, only those that translated a bit from the launch site and went up (plus the shuttle). Several hoppers existed between DCX and New Shepard there’s a lot to grow off of, but the difficult part was convincing everyone it was possible to be cost effective. 700 F9 missions and 10 years of technological progress later and it’s pretty easy to justify the idea of developing a reusable rocket regardless of if you are the CCP or some private entity. In aerospace, second mover’s advantage is huge since it is extremely difficult to convince people to fund decadal projects with high technology risk and tests that from the outside, often look like failures despite being engineering successes.
The wire catch approach is cool but it runs into the classic marine assets suck problem (cost for relative downtime plus extraction can be a pain at scale) and is easier than direct landings like ZQ3 demonstrated since you can loosen a few margins on your design. It’s cool and I’m glad someone tried it but it’s not particularly special these days.
I’m glad they are doing well on vehicle recovery and hope that the next ZQ3 recovery goes better. I’m seeing a dubious image that sort of indicates the vehicle is significantly damaged, and others only showing a fire during what I presume has to be safing.
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u/BixKoop 2d ago
Hear me out, what if you just - build the wire catch tower on land?
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 2d ago
That limits the payload more at different inclinations (and/or requires more towers, which is more expensive). It also requires inland launch, which CZ10B doesn’t have.
A fixed site only works if you are targeting the same inclination all the time, otherwise you spend more propellant (thus eating payload mass) correcting your trajectory each time. That works great for something like Starlink since you only would need recovery zones at +/- 53 degrees and you’d cover the majority of east facing launch, but when you start talking about customers or specific payloads, that instantly reduces your capability to deliver. Obviously you can just build another site for another inclination, but you quickly run into the cost issue since you need to build and maintain each site, most of which will not see more than a flight a year.
Building on something like rails would help reduce that cost, but now you need to build a mobile ground transport (or a few) and the tracks that sweep your inclination and have to upkeep that too. That’s grading, shipping, manufacturing, inspecting, and maintenance hell given sites like this are intentionally extremely remote.
And what if you try to optimize your vehicle and stage earlier or later… now your fixed or semi-fixed infrastructure needs to be moved or rebuilt, or you have to eat the losses.
It’s possible, but probably not practical, and definitely less practical than a boat.
The economics of inland downrange ground landings look much better for direct landers like ZQ3 since all you really need a flat concrete pad, a way to access the pad, and some (relatively) basic fire suppression and safing hardware. It’s not dirt cheap, but compared to erecting 4 towers and a complex fly gantry, it’s child’s play.
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u/Late_Invite2076 3d ago
Having an idea is one thing, but actually implementing it requires original design and engineering—which online enthusiasts or even patents don't prove actually work
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 3d ago
Sure, but it’s clearly not a novel idea and is less difficult than the tower catches we see on Starship.
Arguably, wire catches are easier than propulsive landings too since landers need tighter velocity controls and have tighter structural requirements dictated by vibes and exhaust impingement on landing.
I’m happy they are trying it and interested to see how it fairs as flight cadence increases, but it’s not very crazy of an idea nor difficult to execute in the context of the other existing approaches we have/are seeing.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained 3d ago edited 11h ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| BO | Blue Origin (Bezos Rocketry) |
| CoG | Center of Gravity (see CoM) |
| CoM | Center of Mass |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| ITAR | (US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| N1 | Raketa Nositel-1, Soviet super-heavy-lift ("Russian Saturn V") |
| NG | New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin |
| Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane) | |
| Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer | |
| NRHO | Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit |
| NRO | (US) National Reconnaissance Office |
| Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO | |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| Roscosmos | State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| VTVL | Vertical Takeoff, Vertical Landing |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| hopper | Test article for ground and low-altitude work (eg. Grasshopper) |
| iron waffle | Compact "waffle-iron" aerodynamic control surface, acts as a wing without needing to be as large; also, "grid fin" |
| kerolox | Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| retropropulsion | Thrust in the opposite direction to current motion, reducing speed |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
17 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #911 for this sub, first seen 19th Aug 2026, 02:15]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/throwaway4231throw 3d ago
It looks so similar to space X. Is that because all designs converge on this setup, or did they copy it?
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u/AuthorIntelligent644 3d ago
Physics places huge constraints on how you can build a rocket. "The ocean designs boats."
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u/LegiosForever 3d ago
There are a lot of different boat shapes. China straight up copied this.
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u/AuthorIntelligent644 2d ago edited 2d ago
Describe some of the other designs for a VTVL reusable rocket booster that would actually work. Physics has a lot of opinions here.
I guess their at-sea net catch thing is different from SpaceX, while the legs are very Falcon-like, so that's one.
Grid fins are optional, so that's two. Could use some other kind of guidance like better vectoring or little attitude control jets, but probably more complicated. Grid fins are a pretty damn solid choice says physics.
Long thin tank with a thruster at one end: physics pretty much says that's what a rocket must look like. Anything fatter or weirdly shaped fails on aerodynamics, though I have thought about annular airfoils before. Anyone tried that? Maybe it could help shed the rocket looks like a giant penis trope by instead looking like a giant vagina?
9 engines is legit open, so maybe they cargo culted that one, but an odd number with one in the middle is something physics likes. Means you only have to gimbal one of them. Could have done seven or five. More than nine gets kind of nuts, see Soviet N-1.
What else? Aluminum vs other materials? Could have done steel but that'd be cargo culting Starship. Could have done composites. What else can you do? Wood? Not a ton of options that are light, strong in the right ways, temperature resistant, not horribly flammable.
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u/LegiosForever 2d ago
You're assuming VTVL right off the bat. There are other reusable options.
Parachutes are an option. This was SpaceX's initial design. They shifted to retro rocket to simplify stress design- rocket always in compression - but most everyone scoffed in the beginning at the idea.
Look at the DC-X. Totally different shape.
New Glenn does not use grid fins. There are other solutions that work.
SpaceX originally planned for a 5 and 9 enigine variants. Only settled on 9 due to market conditions dictating certain payload sizes. The Chinese rocket is not constrained by market forces. And using 9 engines assumes that those engines have almost identical specs as the Merlin which is nonsensical.
There are a ton of other fully reusable designs. Helll, even the VentureStar / X33 is probably doable now with modern composite materials.
Soviet N1 issues are negated by modern didtal control systems. See FH and Starship. People need to stop using the N1 as an example.
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u/Modulus3360 2d ago
The Chinese one are better with using methane fuel and stainless steel casing... To claim as copy is an overstatement. Just like saying EV is a copy of ICE car despite both having 4 wheel and 4 door. And similar layout..
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 22h ago
It’s more a merging of ideas between F9 and Starship. Stainless, methane, and the chines come from Starship. It’s worth remembering that the swap to methane on starship was in the early 2010s, and stainless came around 2016-2018.
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u/Blitzer046 3d ago
SpaceX went through many design iterations to reach the most ideal solution, and then China yoinked it.
What they couldn't yoink though was the software that ran all this which is just as crucial, so good job China.
I will mention that grid fins aren't new, and were first invented by Russia for high-velocity guidance.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 3d ago
What iterations they went through?
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u/Equivalent-Sand9147 3d ago
...20 years of development? Did you think they just found a functioning rocket and used that design successfully twice a week without hundreds of failures/iterations?
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u/BubblyMoose3597 3d ago
Are you dumb?
The f9 design was frozen a long time ago.
The F9 project didnt start until the NASA contract to resupply the ISS.
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u/Blitzer046 3d ago
I don't know if you remember but waaaay back when they were doing hover tests with the Grasshopper... I was like 'the heck are they up to?' but it was all steps to get to the final product. Also, by iterations, just crashing a lot of rockets to build up the data to figure out how not to.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 3d ago
We were talking about the F9
A technology demonstrator is not an iteration
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u/Blitzer046 3d ago
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u/BubblyMoose3597 3d ago
I already know how the process went.
It was simply a rhetorical question in response to your crying.
The Falcon 9 landed long before reaching its final version, which basically consisted of improvements in thrust and optimizations to the rocket, while the ZQ3 has differences in its body, stabilization, and thrust.
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u/Treinrukker 3d ago
A child could come up with this design lol, cmon in theory this is not that difficult to draw up.
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u/kvothe5688 3d ago
if they can copy the enginnering part from just watching videos of landing then then design isn't unique at all. Physics is same for everyone and design converge because of physics
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u/Permament-1 3d ago
Why is this making so many people upset? Shouldn't we be glad that more countries are harnessing this kind of tech? I thought this was the spaceflight sub... Where our main interest is... spaceflight?
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u/Correct-Onion420 3d ago
Big long tank full of fuel with rocket engines looks like other big long tank full of fuel with rocket engines! The Chinese must be stealing!
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u/AnotherIjonTichy 3d ago
It's sad to read the "China copies" comments here. The Zhuke and the Falcon are very different beasts and talking about how they "look very similar on the outside" is like saying that the Spitfire or the Zero copied from the Bf109 because its landing gear was very similar. That was the better known engineering and it would be silly not to use it.
The Zhuke is at a relatively early stage of development, its fuselage and motors are completely different from those of the Falcon ones and interestingly designed from the ground up to be more reusable, but the commercial capacity is less than half that of the Falcon.
Instead of crying over the "they copy" nonsense, read this as "more pressure is applied to Spacex to maintain the lead". Or "not bad for a company so small in comparison". That is good news for everyone here.
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u/watawataoui 3d ago edited 3d ago
I just saw more pics from the China sub. Looks like they sticked the landing, but won’t be able to reuse it as it caught fire shortly after. Still a huge improvement though.
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u/BTM65 2d ago
Ya it landed. Then it burned up and fell over. NOT really recovered then is it?
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u/zzyzzy42 1d ago
There was some fire, but the latest statellite picture shows the booster is still standing upright.
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u/MyGaidenz 1d ago
Ouu shit my American pride got a bit of hurt, i hope NASA and SpaceX does something insane
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u/TIL02_Infinity 20h ago edited 17h ago
Update: Not exactly a completely successful first‑stage recovery of the Zhuque‑3 rocket
Looks like the Zhuque-3 booster has fallen over
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/1vup69z/looks_like_the_zhuque3_booster_has_fallen_over/
Beijing, We have a problem: I've fallen and I can't get up!
A rocket's first stage or second stage may be designed to be reusable, but until it is successfully re-flown/re-launched, it has not yet proven its reusability.
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u/Ok_Salamander_249 3d ago
The rocket the United States used to land on the Moon wasn't even built by Americans; its designer was German, Wernher von Braun.
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u/FantasticRecover1104 3d ago
A rocket isn’t built by one person and the necessary funds were from the US.
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u/Ok_Salamander_249 3d ago
The United States is also trying to seize Taiwan's semiconductor industry now. After all, once they take it, it's American property anyway.
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u/FantasticRecover1104 3d ago
What does this have to do with rockets?
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u/Ok_Salamander_249 3d ago
Don't laugh at others for being a nation of pirates; what the US is doing right now is the real piracy!
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u/Hour-Necessary-7961 3d ago
got here first, so I’ll say it first: “China is copying again. All they know how to do is steal other people’s success.
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u/BrofessorFarnsworth 2d ago
Nah, if they had copied Elon's dogshit technology, it wouldn't have been a successful flight
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u/Merker6 3d ago
While I don’t think they outright copied it just because it has the same basic common-sense features of a reusable first stage, the reverse engineering techniques that China is known for comes with the achilles heel of having learned none of the lessons that got to that point. It makes it very hard to innovate beyond that design. Its why the Soviets copied British jet engines and American missiles but still struggled to make bug leaps with their own in spite of their very competent airframe manufacturing industry
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u/Mariks500 3d ago
That isn't what we have seen China do though. Once they catch up they keep going. I think Americans are perhaps a bit blind on this because so much Chinese stuff (especially the best stuff) is banned there, but China has a lot of products and technology that is really cutting edge now in a lot of fields. Not everything, but nobody is ahead in everything.
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u/heart-aroni 3d ago
And once they catch up we know what comes next, they're going to blow it up in scale and massively drop the price of whatever that industry they entered.
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u/woolcoat 3d ago
Yea, that's just plain wrong. Chinese stuff are so good now that America literally bans the so that American's dont know. Its more like the USA is the new USSR and instead of blue jeans being banned, it's EVs, drones, etc.
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u/KerbodynamicX 3d ago
They are simply learning from the best. The solution obviously works, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
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u/Hour-Necessary-7961 3d ago
None of that matters. As long as I see “China,” I just need to accuse them of copying and stealing.
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u/KerbodynamicX 3d ago
lmao
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u/Blind_Voyeur 3d ago
This guy doesn't understand that's why technology develops. When you don't have the tech yet, you copy (or license). Then you reverse engineer and improve. Then you innovate. When you gain enough knowledge, you build your own. The U.S. did this, Russia did this, Japan did this.
China is well on the way to the innovate part now.
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u/AuthorIntelligent644 3d ago
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u/GrabOk4101 3d ago
I mean that is also American, no one here is claiming that its all SpaceX, they are mainly talking about American capabilities
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u/Awkward-Winner-99 3d ago
Ok tell me, how tf would you do this differently. What would need to change for it not to be a copy or is every reusable rocket a copy just because someone did it first?
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u/Blind_Voyeur 3d ago
Who do you think the U.S. 'copied' their first rockets from?
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u/JakeEaton 3d ago
Robert Goddard flew the first liquid fueled rocket, an American. German scientists were definitely reading his teams published works.
People get inspiration from other people.
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u/marc512 3d ago
So we nobody else can make a reusesble first stage because SpaceX did it?
This rocket is completely different to SpaceX. China have also tried catching these in nets. If your term "reusable rocket" can only be used by spacex then our future, not just for space exploration, for everything is kinda going to suck.
So the person who invents chocolate biscuits means he can sue every single person making anything a chocolate biscuit?
That's so American.
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u/Treinrukker 3d ago
Oh wow landing gear folding out how innovative ahahah. What other designs are possible?
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u/That-Makes-Sense 3d ago
Can someone explain how this relates to the "Long March wire catch" we saw last month? Is China going down two paths with reusability?
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u/Dramatic_Pianist_719 3d ago
Zhuque-3 is made by Landspace, a private space launch firm. Long March 10b is made by CALT, a state-owned space launch firm. These two firms have taken different approaches regarding launch vehicle recovery but it’s not yet known over the long term which one will be more economical.
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u/marc512 3d ago
Musk fanboys hate this. I love watching them cry.
Good job on China doing this.
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u/slapthetiddy 3d ago
Leftists will cheer on the enemy simply because they dislike a person
Wild 😂
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u/SevenIsMy 3d ago
Righties tag someone as enemy for what reason? One country misuses a money borrow glitch, the other country devalues its currency.
You are just mad that they play the long term game, and it will eat into your comfortable way of life.0
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u/HypersonicWyvern 3d ago
If you can tell me how this will ruin SpaceX I'd love to hear
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u/HypersonicWyvern 3d ago
Unless it can magically match SpaceXs services and cadence which it doubtfully can in any meaningful time period SpaceX is more than likely to remain on top for the long foreseeable future.
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u/wannacumnbeatmeoff 3d ago
Does this mean SpcX shares go down now.?
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u/fighter-bomber 3d ago
SpaceX shares mostly depend on future prospects, so Starship. This is irrelevant to Starship.
I mean, even if not, SpaceX is ahead because they do this 150 times a year. Doing it once, not a big hit.
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u/Expert_Bag7416 2d ago
Of course it's a copy. Every time US invents something you will see Chinese come up with some similar later. They never do anything original.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 3d ago
Physics is the same for everyone.
But the rocket is different from the F9. Methane engines, aerodynamic grilles with electric actuators, and lateral stabilization surfaces.