China Recovers a Rocket Booster at Sea, Becoming the Second Nation to Bring One Back Under Control

China's first Long March 10B rocket lifted off from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site and, about eleven minutes later, its first stage was recovered on a sea-based platform, state media reported. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said it was the world's first controlled recovery of a carrier rocket's booster using a net-capture system.

The technical approach differs from the American model. Rather than landing on deployable legs, the booster uses four landing hooks to catch a net mounted on the offshore platform. SpaceNews noted that the flight makes China only the second country to bring an orbital-class booster back under control, after the United States, and that the state contractor intends to reuse the recovered stage before the end of the year. The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese engineers presented the net-capture method as a design with advantages over the approach SpaceX pioneered.

Reusability is the economics of modern spaceflight. Recovering and reflying the most expensive part of a rocket is what lowered launch costs in the United States, and a working Chinese version narrows a capability gap that until now belonged largely to one country.