Zhuque-3

Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) is a reusable liquid oxygen-methane launch vehicle developed by LandSpace, China's first rocket designed for recovery from its maiden flight . Standing 66.1 meters tall with a 4.5-meter diameter and roughly 570-ton liftoff mass, it is built around nine TQ-12A engines on its first stage and a single TQ-15A vacuum engine on the second, delivering over 750 tons of thrust at liftoff . The rocket uses stainless steel for roughly 80% of its structure, a deliberate choice to eliminate external thermal protection and shorten turnaround times between flights—part of LandSpace's bet that rapid reusability, not just recovery, is what closes the business case .

The vehicle was formally approved in August 2023 . Its development path included a milestone nine-engine cluster ground ignition test in June 2025 , a first-phase flight test in October 2025 covering fueling and static fire , and successful orbital insertion on December 3, 2025 with the "youth edition" first-flight configuration, which was slightly shorter than the eventual full 76-meter design . A second flight vehicle completed static fire testing by late June 2026 . LandSpace aims for the mature vehicle to achieve at least 20 reuses per first stage and deliver no less than 18 tons to low Earth orbit with downrange recovery, targeting China's large-scale satellite internet constellation deployment needs .