Today marks a historic moment for China's commercial space industry.
On July 10th, the Long March 10B carrier rocket launched from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site. Following the separation of its first and second stages, the first stage successfully performed a controlled vertical return and was recovered on a sea-based platform. This achievement represents China's first successful controlled recovery of a carrier rocket's first stage and the world's first application of a "net-based" recovery system for a launch vehicle.
This development has triggered a significant surge in related market segments.
The commercial space concept sector saw numerous stocks rally to their daily limit-up.
Furthermore, six major satellite-themed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) all hit their daily price limit during the trading session.
Analysts from Yongying Fund noted that insufficient launch capacity and high costs have been the primary constraints on the number of satellite launches. The successful recovery of this rocket stage signifies a substantive breakthrough in this core bottleneck, providing the most significant catalyst to date for the commercial space sector.
Analysts pointed out that the Long March 10B did not replicate SpaceX's landing leg technology for vertical landing. Instead, it pioneered a global-first "sea-based net recovery" system. This approach eliminates the need for heavy landing legs on the first stage, reducing dead weight. A flexible capture net on the recovery ship secures the stage upon landing. This method simplifies the rocket's structure and reduces the demands on engine thrust modulation and landing precision. In its recoverable configuration, the Long March 10B has a low Earth orbit payload capacity of no less than 16 tons, with performance metrics comparable to the Falcon 9. Unit launch costs are expected to decrease by over 40%. This represents a rapid catch-up to the global benchmark using an independently innovative technical path and lower engineering costs.
According to the development team's plan, the first reusable flight of a recovered first-stage rocket is anticipated before the end of this year. The Zhuque-3 Y2 rocket is also poised for launch. With both state-backed and private rocket companies driving progress, reusable rocket technology is entering a period of intensive validation and rapid iteration.
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