China lands a reusable rocket booster for the first time, catching it in a net at sea

China achieved its first successful recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster on July 10, when the first stage of a Long March-10B rocket was caught by a net-and-cable system aboard a recovery vessel in waters off Hainan Province, roughly six minutes after liftoff. The rocket launched from Pad No. 2 at the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center at 12:15 p.m. local time, as first reported by CGTN.

The achievement matters because it makes China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) the third organization — after SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Blue Origin's New Glenn — to successfully recover an orbital-class rocket booster for reuse. CASC called the mission "a historic breakthrough in China's reusable rocket technology and a solid foundation for accelerating the improvement of China's space access capabilities."

The recovery method itself is distinct from SpaceX's approach. Rather than using deployable landing legs to set the booster down vertically, the Long March-10B relies on a net-capture system: a hook mechanism deploys during descent and makes contact with tensioned cables strung across the recovery vessel, which gradually decelerate the booster and absorb its kinetic energy before auxiliary cables and an automated locking platform secure it for transport back to shore.

The Long March-10B stands roughly 207 feet (63 meters) tall, with a first stage burning seven kerosene/liquid-oxygen engines and a second stage running on liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Fully reusable, the rocket is designed to carry up to 16 tonnes to low-Earth orbit. The recovery vessel used in this mission was delivered in December 2025, with validation testing conducted in February 2026 ahead of today's operational recovery.

CASC engineers say they plan to conduct the first reflight of the recovered booster by the end of 2026. If that timeline holds, it would put China on a path to compete more directly with SpaceX's Falcon 9 cadence and Blue Origin's New Glenn program, both of which have spent years refining reusability to drive down launch costs — a race where China has now closed a meaningful technical gap in a single flight.