SpaceX rival: pioneering Chinese firm unveils big rocket with design elements ‘resembling Starship and Falcon 9’

Name: China beats SpaceX with world’s first methane-powered rocket launch
Uploaded: 2023-12-14T12:00:20.000Z
Duration: 1 min 27 s
Description: China beats SpaceX with world’s first methane-powered rocket launch

LandSpace eyes debut of reusable rocket in 2025 to help China create its 13,000-satellite broadband megaconstellation to rival SpaceX network

Zhuque 3 expected to be China’s first stainless steel rocket, to capitalise on its high strength, high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance and low cost

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The Zhuque 2 lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on Saturday, becoming the first in the world to launch satellites with rockets fuelled by methane and liquid oxygen. Photo: Weibo / @ Landspace

Ling Xinin Ohio

Published: 8:00pm, 14 Dec 2023

Beijing-based LandSpace, which earlier this year became the first company to put a methane-fuelled rocket into orbit, aims to launch a reusable rocket in 2025 to help China roll out its 13,000-satellite broadband megaconstellation.

At 76.6 metres (251 feet) tall and 4.5 metres wide, Zhuque 3 would feature a stainless steel structure, Chinese-made Tianque engines powered by methane and liquid oxygen (methalox), and a first stage which may be used up to 20 times, the company said on its website on Saturday.

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China beats SpaceX with world’s first methane-powered rocket launch

The new rocket will serve as LandSpace’s workhorse to win contracts from the Chinese government and launch batches of Guowang satellites to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

It will also help usher the country’s commercial launch sector “into an era of qualitative transformation with high transport capacity, reusability and low costs”, the company said.

“Zhuque 3 appeared to be a combination of SpaceX’s Starship and Falcon 9 given its stainless steel propellant tank and nine-engine first-stage design,” a Beijing-based rocket engineer said on Monday.

He said that with a larger diameter and lift-off mass, it would be more powerful than the kerosene-powered Falcon 9, which has delivered more than 5,000 Starlink satellites into orbit since 2019.