AINEWS
Reusable boosters and large low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations are two races, not one, and three events in five weeks show China running them as a coupled problem, with a wide gap to SpaceX still intact.
On Aug. 18, LandSpace became only the third company after SpaceX and Blue Origin to recover a rocket booster on land, when its Zhuque-3 first stage touched down about 390 kilometers from the launch site in Gansu (Space.com, NASASpaceflight). Two weeks earlier, the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) had caught the first stage of a Long March-10B out of the air using a ship-borne hook-and-net system off China's southern coast, rather than letting the booster touch down on legs (RTHK). Together with a US$1 billion state-backed capital round closed by Shanghai Space Satellite Technology (SSST, also branded SpaceSail) in mid-July, the two recoveries make the relay between China's reusable-booster and large-constellation programs visible for the first time.
China is not catching SpaceX in one race. It is running two: reusable boosters and large low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, the altitude band where most commercial broadband networks live. The booster is the prerequisite; the constellation is the payload. Closing one without the other caps the program, and for years each track moved in fits and starts while the other idled. The past five weeks made the joint motion visible.
Reusability is a prerequisite, not a finish line. LandSpace's 66.1-meter Zhuque-3, a nine-engine first stage, lifts about 14.2 tons to LEO against Falcon 9's roughly 22.8 tons (Light Reading, Channel News Asia, India Today). The 60% payload gap translates directly into how many satellites a Chinese launcher can deploy per mission. A single successful landing also does not establish the rapid-reuse cadence SpaceX has spent a decade refining, and CASC's sea-catch approach is one of several recovery methods Chinese launchers are testing in parallel. Whether either method scales to operational tempo is a separate engineering question.
The second race is the constellation. China's two flagship LEOsat projects are SSST and Guowang, the latter owned by the state holding company China Satellite Network (China SatNet). Together they have about 400 satellites in orbit against Starlink's roughly 11,000 (Light Reading). SSST launched 18 satellites on one day and 20 the next in early July, bringing its on-orbit total to 238. The operator's long-term target is a 15,000-satellite constellation, and its first LEOsats reached orbit in August 2024.
The third piece of news turns the two races into one relay. In mid-July, SSST closed a 7 billion yuan (about US$1 billion) capital round at a US$7.4 billion valuation, led by the state-backed National Strategic Investment Fund II with 5.8 billion yuan and 24 participating enterprises (Light Reading). State capital is now underwriting the payload side of the equation, just as the booster side is delivering its first recoveries. A constellation that cannot be launched cheaply and repeatedly hits a ceiling; a reusable booster with no constellation to serve is an expensive line item.
The quantified gap remains wide. Starlink has roughly 27 times more satellites in orbit, and SpaceX's launch cadence still sets the pace the rest of the industry chases. But the inputs that make a competitive LEO constellation possible, including a domestic reusability track, a state-funded constellation builder, and launch operators willing to test both land and sea recovery, are now visibly aligning.
The next data point to watch is whether LandSpace or CASC turns either of these recoveries into a re-flight. Zhuque-3's second flight has happened; its third, with a previously flown booster, is the milestone that would put Chinese reusability on a comparable learning curve.