China's methane-powered reusable rocket Zhuque-3 expected to make maiden flight in 2025

Private Chinese company LandSpace on Saturday released details about its Zhuque-3 methane and liquid oxygen-powered reusable rocket, which is expected to be ready for its maiden flight in 2025.

The Zhuque-3 carrier rocket, which will be China's first rocket made of stainless steel, is 4.5 meters in diameter, with a total length of 76.6 meters. Its liftoff weight is about 660 tonnes, with a carrying capacity of 21.3 tonnes.

The rocket will use Tianque methane engines developed by LandSpace, which is headquartered in Beijing. Its first stage will have nine Tianque-12B engines, which can be reused up to 20 times. Zhuque-3's second stage will employ a Tianque-15B vacuum engine.

Major breakthroughs

Zhang Changwu, CEO of LandSpace, said the company has made significant breakthroughs during the Zhuque-3 development process.

"The Zhuque-3 carrier rocket is a large-sized single-stage liquid oxygen methane reusable launch vehicle specifically developed in response to market demand amid construction of China's national satellite-based internet project," said Zhang.

"Over the past two years, we have made significant progress from project initiation to advancement for the engineering project to the roll-out of the final product. We are also expected to achieve the milestone of product delivery in 2025," Zhang continued.

"For the Zhuque-3 carrier rocket, we have made numerous breakthroughs in the fundamental experiments for making it. We have achieved groundbreaking progress in the rocket's material, the upgrade of the thrust of the rocket engine and the algorithm for single-stage reusability," Zhang added.

Talking about long-term goals, Zhang said that his team is currently developing a 100-tonne rocket engine, and they hope to upgrade to a 200-to-300-tonne full-flow supplementary combustion engine in 2028, and make a two-stage reusable launch vehicle with a diameter of 10 meters in 2030.

Why reusable rockets?

Also, on Saturday, LandSpace's Zhuque-2 Y-3 carrier rocket was successfully launched into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, sending three satellites into planned orbit. It was the third flight mission of the Zhuque-2 carrier rocket.

Saturday's successful launch marked a breakthrough in the development of low-cost reusable commercial rockets, which is crucial to expanding the space traffic portal in the future for the aerospace industry, Dai Zheng, deputy chief designer of the rocket, told China Media Group (CMG). 

"From a global perspective, the reusability of launch vehicles is a popular choice for promoting the global commercial aerospace industries, with the leading role of the United States," Dai said.

Liquid oxygen and methane is the most popular propellant for reusable rockets for its low cost and reusability, according to Dai, who said his team will continue to optimize the design of the Zhuque-2 rocket to further improve its performance.

"We compared the flight data of Zhuque-2 rockets with their design specifications and identified areas for optimization. These adjustments were implemented in the third rocket, to improve its reliability and performance indicators," said Dai.

"Next year's rocket will feature significant improvements, including the application of low-temperature technology, thrust enhancements, and two ignitions for the second stage. This process aims to accumulate data and establish a solid foundation for future technological advances," Dai added.

Zhuque-2 is China's first medium-sized rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane, capable of lifting 1,500 kilograms of spacecraft into a sun-synchronous orbit 500 kilometers from Earth. Its upgraded version has an increased liftoff weight of 4,000 kilograms, meeting the demand for low-Earth orbit satellite deployment and spacecraft launches.

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