Long March 10B Successfully Returned, China Prints Breakthrough Rocket Reuse

The Long March 10B rocket launched from the Hainan commercial space center in Wenchang, southern China, on July 10, 2026. Photo: Wan Quan/China Daily

China has made significant progress in space technology after successfully recovering the Long March 10B rocket after its maiden flight. The latest rocket is China's first launch vehicle to successfully return after carrying out an orbital mission.

China Daily, quoted on Friday, July 10, reported that the success of Long March 10B made China the second country after the United States to have reliable rocket reuse technology. The mission was also called the world's first recovery for an orbital class rocket with a cable containment system.

Reusable rockets are rockets whose components are designed to be safely reused. This technology is important because it can cut space launch costs.

The Long March 10B lifted off at 12:15 a.m. on Friday from the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center in Wenchang, a coastal city in Hainan Province. The 63.6-meter-tall rocket lifted off from the service tower after seven engines on the first stage booster ignited.

The first stage engine uses liquid oxygen and kerosene. The rocket then breaks through the white clouds and leaves a vapor trail in the sky.

About two and a half minutes after liftoff, the rocket reached the separation point a few kilometers above the Karman Line. The Karman Line is known as the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space.

Then, the first and second stage boosters separated. The first stage engine stopped temporarily. One engine on the second stage that uses liquid oxygen and methane then lit up to push the top of the rocket into the target orbit.

The upper stage of the rocket then places a satellite into a predetermined orbit, hundreds of kilometers above Earth.

Meanwhile, the first stage continued to climb for a while due to the inertia impulse. The open-grid-shaped directing fins, then the active reaction control system to regulate the position of the rocket and adjust its trajectory before descending back into the atmosphere in a controlled manner.

On the way down, several first-stage engines restarted twice in a row. Together with the steering fins and the reaction control system, the engine ignition slowed the rate of fall, kept the rocket on the planned path, and reduced its speed as it approached the sea surface.

In between starting the engine, the booster relies on a calculated fall position so that the air resistance helps reduce the speed.

At the recovery site, the Linghangzhe or Pathfinder ship was waiting hundreds of kilometers southeast of Wenchang. The ship continued to track the returning first stage booster and adjusted its position to align with the capture point.

In the last seconds, all the first stage engines died. A special set of metal hooks then opened to connect with the already stretched cable net.

The cable containment system is a method of capturing rockets with metal hooks and a taut cable net. In this mission, the system is a differentiator because the rocket does not land on land or on a ship like the method that is more public knowledge.

The Long March 10B was designed and built by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, a subsidiary of the Beijing-based China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp or CASC. This rocket is the third model in the Long March 10 series and was developed from Long March 10A technology.

Globally, the most well-known reusable rocket is SpaceX's Falcon 9. The rocket has flown many times with the booster being reused.

Another American commercial space company, Blue Origin, has also completed the first successful landing of the first stage of the New Glenn rocket in its latest mission.

For China, the recovery of Long March 10B is the third experiment for this kind of technology. Previously, recovery efforts were carried out on the ZQ 3 rocket made by Landspace and the Long March 12A developed by CASC's Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.