BEIJING, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Chinese startup LandSpace on Wednesday recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket, becoming the first private Chinese company to land an orbital-class booster and narrowing China’s gap with the United States in reusable rocket technology.
LandSpace now joins SpaceX and Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin as one of only three private rocket developers in the world to land a large booster of a rocket that has flown to space with the goal of using it again.
This was LandSpace’s second try at landing the engine-packed first stage of the Zhuque-3, a stainless-steel vehicle billed as China’s answer to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
(Reporting by Shi Bu, Ethan Wang and Joe Cash; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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