By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, April 3 (Reuters) – Beijing-based rocket developer Space Pioneer said on Friday that the maiden flight of its reusable rocket Tianlong-3 failed, highlighting the challenge China’s rocket developers face in catching up to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Space Pioneer, also known as Beijing Tianbing Technology Co, offered few details about what went wrong, disclosing the failure only in a brief statement posted on its official WeChat account.
It is among a small group of rapidly growing private-sector rocket developers, spurred by Beijing’s push to turn China into a major space power, as well as policy support that has made it easier for such firms to raise capital and pursue initial public offerings.
These companies are now in a race to become the leading Chinese developer of reusable rockets, a technology so far mastered only by U.S.-based SpaceX.
The ability to launch, recover, and reuse the main stage of an orbital rocket is key to lowering launch costs and making it easier to put into orbit satellites used for purposes ranging from communications to military surveillance.
After raising nearly 2.5 billion yuan ($363 million) six months ago, Space Pioneer said that Tianlong-3 was similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the world’s only rocket model to have proven its reusability and reliability via hundreds of launches.
The company says Tianlong-3 is capable of putting 36 satellites into orbit per launch, making it well-suited for China’s ambitions of building constellations made up of thousands of satellites in a bid to reduce the monopoly SpaceX and its satellites have in Earth’s lower orbits.
This is not the first setback for Space Pioneer’s reusable rocket.
In June 2024, the company completed a separate fundraising round of more than 1.5 billion yuan ($207 million) meant to finance the development of its reusable rockets.
Weeks later, the first stage of a Tianlong-3 rocket under development detached from its launch pad during a test due to structural failure and landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China.
Tianlong-3’s second mishap highlights the gap between China and the United States in reusable rockets. While Chinese firms including LandSpace have had better success in launching reusable rockets, no Chinese firm has yet demonstrated the ability to recover and reuse a rocket’s main stage.
LandSpace is planning to launch its reusable rocket Zhuque-3 on its second flight during the first half of this year.
(Reporting by Eduardo BaptistaEditing by Ros Russell)
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