HUZHOU China's rocket startup LandSpace has made no secret about ‍drawing inspiration from Elon Musk's SpaceX. Earlier this month, the Beijing-based firm became the first Chinese entity to conduct a reusable rocket test. LandSpace's focus on giving China its own low-cost ⁠launch option similar to SpaceX's flight-proven reusable rocket Falcon 9 will play a key role in Beijing's plans to build up 10,000 satellite constellations in the coming decades. Dai said SpaceX's generous financial backing was a key factor in allowing the U.S. firm to incur huge losses while testing Starship, its reusable launch vehicle. "IN ANOTHER LEAGUE"A month before LandSpace launched the Zhuque-3, SpaceX founder Musk had already taken note of the vehicle's design.

Source: The Hindu December 29, 2025 03:03 UTC