SpaceX has been successfully landing the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket for a decade. This will allow SpaceX to use a single booster for multiple missions, reducing launch costs and increasing launch frequency.
Few other companies have made any real effort to replicate SpaceX's success with the first stage launch vehicle, although Blue Origin only achieved its first result last month when landed the main stage of its New Glenn rocket on the second attempt after a failed attempt at the beginning of the year.
The New Zealand Rocket Laboratory is taking a different approach to launch vehicle recovery, developing a system that deploys parachutes on the descending launch vehicle to slow it down before hooking the helicopter and then sending it back to earth. He has yet to accomplish the feat.
And now Chinese space firm LandSpace is giving it a try, although as you can see in the video below, its first attempt to land the main stage of its new Zhuque-3 rocket this week ended in failure when the booster crashed into the ground at high speed.
Zhuque-3 made its first orbital test flight from Jiuquan in northwestern China, and although the rocket successfully reached orbit, landing on the launch vehicle was unsuccessful.
“The anomaly occurred after the first stage engine caught fire during the landing phase, preventing a soft landing at the designated recovery pad,” LandSpace said in a widely circulated statement. “The debris landed at the edge of the recovery area, resulting in a failed recovery test.”
The team is now conducting a thorough review of what happened and will make changes to the system before trying again.
While LandSpace is disappointing, failures in spaceflight development are common. SpaceX suffered many failed landings with its Falcon 9 launch vehicle before successfully achieving it, and no doubt LandSpace will soon achieve the same result.
On a much larger scale, SpaceX is also working on the landing process for its massive Starship rocket, which is still undergoing testing. To date, in several test flights, the company has been able to bring the Starship's super-heavy first-stage booster home, anchoring it above the ground with two large mechanical arms. If you've never witnessed this, an impressive maneuver definitely worth a look.
