China wants to seize SpaceX’s reusable rocket and replace Jeff Bezos as Elon Musk’s main space rival

China intends to relax Elon MuskThe US blockade of reusable launch vehicles and the closing of a huge technological gap with the United States

Beijing is turning to both aerospace startups and state-owned companies to develop a lead in rockets that can be used dozens of times to lift satellites into low-Earth orbit.

One company trying to meet that challenge is LandSpace Technology Corp., whose reusable Zhuque-3 rocket successfully completed a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) vertical takeoff and landing test flight at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday. According to Chinese state media, it marked a “significant breakthrough in China’s commercial space industry” and was a “crucial step toward achieving high capacity, low cost, high frequency and reusability in future space launches.”

Another startup in the making is Deep Blue, a private company that also plans to test a reusable rocket later this week. A successful demonstration would bring it one step closer to providing the kind of regular orbital deployment service offered by SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets.

Huo Liang, CEO of Jiangsu Deep Blue Aerospace Technology Co., said: SpaceX is setting the pace for the rest of the space industry. “Its rockets now fly routinely and execute commercial missions repeatedly, while China has yet to master this technology.”

While China’s space program has matched NASA with multiple landings on the Moon and Mars, it hasn’t kept pace in developing rockets that can be used again and again. And it’s not alone. Most other Asian, European and Russian spacecraft also rely on single-use launch vehicles, giving Musk’s SpaceX a near-monopoly in the global market.

Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin LLC has come close with its reusable New Shepard rocket, which performs suborbital missions carrying passengers into space for a few minutes. Its larger rocket, New Glenn, designed to put satellites into orbit and fly a minimum of 25 times, is expected to debut in November, four years later than planned.

Since 2017, SpaceX has been reusing its rocket boosters, allowing it to offer lower-cost launches at rapid intervals and build out its network of more than 6,000 satellites for its Starlink global internet service.

This gives the country (and the United States) a huge cost advantage over single-use rockets, allowing for a steady pace of launches throughout the year.

Chinese companies say they are on the cusp of a sustained breakthrough, with rockets like Deep Blue’s Nebula-1 or similar prototypes in development. As much as the country has come to dominate manufacturing in many other industries, mass production of rockets is another target for conquest. The goal is not just to match SpaceX, but to beat it at its own game.

Deep Blue plans an orbital launch next year while it works out some problems with its rocket.

“A reusable Chinese rocket, when it becomes a reality, will be significantly less expensive than a Falcon 9,” said Carter Palmer, principal space systems analyst at Forecast International, an aerospace and defense market research firm based in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Accident on the mountainside

It may be a while before that happens.

Even if China’s rocket makers succeed with initial tests, rapidly deploying reusable rockets will take time and multiple test cycles. And there have been plenty of setbacks as companies experiment with their technology, such as a test in June when Beijing Tianbing Technology Co., also known as Space Pioneer, crashed a rocket into a mountainside 1.5 kilometers from the launch pad.

European joint venture Airbus SE-Safran SA, ArianeGroup, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and U.S.-based United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., are racing to come up with their own reuse strategies that would allow for more launches and help amortize the cost and build time of each rocket.

Mitsubishi Heavy aims to introduce a reusable launch vehicle in the future, but “we are not at the stage of developing anything concrete right now,” Chief Executive Officer Seiji Izumisawa told Bloomberg Television on June 21.

For China, it’s a matter of civic pride and national security. President Xi Jinping’s government wants a healthy commercial space industry that can meet domestic needs and compete with the United States for customers (and influence) around the world.

“They’re going to offer that as one of the benefits of being on China’s side in this great power competition: ‘You don’t have to rely on the United States for this kind of stuff,’” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies.

Beijing also wants a counterweight to SpaceX’s increasingly ubiquitous Starlink, which has played a prominent role in conflict zones like Ukraine and is bringing reliable internet service to much of the underdeveloped world. China needs reusable rockets to build low-Earth orbit satellite networks and other projects, from a lunar research base to an orbital solar power plant, said Peter Garretson, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council.

“All of these plans require a huge capacity to move mass around the solar system on a large scale, and you can’t do that economically without a reusable launch,” he said. “Reusability is absolutely central to China’s space economic development plan.”

Gobi Desert Test

LandSpace and Deep Blue are just several Chinese companies vying to emulate Musk in developing reusable rockets.

Subsidiaries of state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC) conducted similar tests earlier this year. One took place in the Gobi Desert in June under the auspices of CASC’s Shanghai Academy of Space Flight Technology, which has an ambitious goal of making the first reusable rocket flight into space by 2025.

Beijing-based LandSpace said commercial flights will begin in 2025. Other Chinese companies working on reusable rockets include Galactic Energy Aerospace Technology Co. and Orienspace, which expects to launch its Gravity-2 reusable rocket in early 2026, co-chief executive Yao Song told Bloomberg in February.

LandSpace, Galactic Energy and Orienspace did not respond to requests for comment. The two state-owned companies also did not respond.

China’s deep pockets are certainly driving its space industry. The government spent as much as $14 billion on its space program last year, according to the CIA World Factbook, with much of that amount going to state-owned companies like CASC and CASIC. Private Chinese space companies receive subsidies through investments from government-backed funds and the use of publicly funded launch facilities. In February, the government announced the opening of a reusable rocket technology center in Beijing to help startups.

“In terms of significance, you just look at other countries or adversaries. Where are they investing? They’re investing in space,” Tim Keating, chief strategy officer for Sierra Space, said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual aerospace summit in Washington on Wednesday. “I actually think China is ahead of us. If you look at the investment, you know it’s not just being done for someone’s health. So I would say that’s the one telltale sign that we have a problem.”

In July, Deep Blue announced it had raised nearly 1 billion yuan ($141 million) from Chinese investors, including a government-backed high-tech zone in Wuxi, a city near Shanghai. Rival Orienspace raised about 600 million yuan in a funding round in January that included funding from another local government. And Galactic Energy said last December it had raised 1.1 billion yuan from local investors.

But while China’s government has been very supportive of the sector, it remains to be seen whether the country can form a national champion capable of beating SpaceX at its own game, said Jianwei Li, managing partner at Zhencheng Capital, a Chinese venture capital firm in Beijing that is investing in Deep Blue.

“Every company says they want to be China’s SpaceX, but let’s be realistic,” Li said. “Not everyone is doing so well.”