China’s first attempt to land an orbital-class rocket may have ended in a fiery crash, but the company responsible for the mission had a lot to celebrate with the first flight of its new methane-fueled launcher.

LandSpace, a decade-old company based in Beijing, launched its new Zhuque-3 rocket for the first time at 11 pm EST Tuesday (04:0 UTC Wednesday), or noon local time at the Jiuquan launch site in northwestern China.

Powered by nine methane-fueled engines, the Zhuque-3 (Vermillion Bird-3) rocket climbed away from its launch pad with more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust. The 216-foot-tall (66-meter) launcher headed southeast, soaring through clear skies before releasing its first stage booster about two minutes into the flight.

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Origianl Creator:
Stephen Clark

Original Link: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/12/a-little-known-chinese-company-nearly-landed-a-rocket-from-space-on-its-first-try/
Originally Posted: Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:40:15 +0000