China lands the first-stage booster of a Long March-10B rocket on a sea barge after a net capture about six minutes post-separation and deploys a satellite to orbit.China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation says the net-based retrieval is the country’s first orbital-booster recovery and may be the world’s first net capture of a booster, bringing China closer to SpaceX and Blue Origin in reusable launch technology.The
Long March-10B can place up to 16,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit,
CASC frames the success as a step toward crewed lunar missions, and
Elon Musk and analysts note
China is adopting stainless steel and methalox techniques even as flight cadence and constellation scale lag.