By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, Dec 3 (Reuters) – LandSpace has become China’s most advanced private rocket company and the country’s closest equivalent to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, following U.S. rivals in betting its future on rockets that can fly more than once.
WHAT IS LANDSPACE?
Founded in 2015 and based in Beijing, LandSpace was one of the first startups to enter the industry after China opened parts of its space sector to private money in 2014.
It has raised billions of yuan from investors including venture capital firm HongShan, at the time known as Sequoia Capital China, the investment arm of property developer Country Garden and the state-backed China SME Development Fund.
In 2020, it raised 1.2 billion yuan ($170 million) and last December it secured another 900 million yuan from a state-owned fund that supports advanced manufacturing, according to Chinese corporate records. Local governments in Huzhou and Jiaxing have also backed the firm.
In July 2023, LandSpace became the first company in the world to launch a rocket, called Zhuque-2, powered by methane and liquid oxygen, ahead of U.S. rivals including SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
WHAT IS LANDSPACE’S REUSABLE ROCKET ZHUQUE-3?
LandSpace is now focused on a much bigger rocket called Zhuque-3. It is made of stainless steel and designed to carry about 20 to 25 tonnes to low-Earth orbit, several times more than Zhuque-2.
If Zhuque-3 can take off, return and land in one piece, LandSpace would become the first private Chinese company – and only the third company in the world after SpaceX and Blue Origin – to land a large booster that has flown to space with the goal of using it again.
That ambition puts LandSpace at the forefront of China’s private efforts to make rockets cheaper and reusable, while big state-owned space companies move more slowly in that direction.
Zhuque-3 is China’s first serious attempt at a large reusable rocket at a time when Beijing wants private firms to win more global launch contracts and help put up its own large fleets of communications and Earth-watching satellites.
WHAT HAS ELON MUSK SAID ABOUT LANDSPACE’S ZHUQUE-3?
Around the world, rockets that can launch and then land for reuse have drawn huge interest and investment because they could make it far cheaper to send satellites into space. But the engineering is extremely complex and so far only SpaceX has been able to do this regularly with its Falcon 9 rocket.
With Zhuque-3’s development and first flight, LandSpace has come closer to that goal than any other non-U.S. rival.
Musk has noticed. In October, he replied to a post on X about Zhuque-3’s design by saying the Chinese rocket could eventually beat the Falcon 9. SpaceX currently depends on the Falcon 9 to keep building out its Starlink internet network, which has far more satellites than any competitor in the U.S. or China.
WHY DO REUSABLE ROCKETS MATTER IN CHINA’S SPACE STRATEGY?
For Beijing, companies like LandSpace are a way to combine the experience of long-established state space firms with the speed and risk-taking of startups as it seeks to build its own version of Starlink in the years ahead.
“As low-orbit constellation deployment accelerates, Zhuque-3 will … progress from recovery demonstrations to routine reuse and toward airline-style operational cadence, aiming to … contribute to China’s space power objectives and advanced industrial capacity,” LandSpace said in a statement after Zhuque-3’s maiden launch.
A successful Zhuque-3 program – and the company’s push to become second only to SpaceX in reusable rockets – is expected to support its fundraising, including a planned listing on Shanghai’s tech-focused Star Market, which was disclosed in July.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
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