Reusable rockets are no longer a spectacle. This year saw them gradually transform into a piece of infrastructure, with China emerging as a strong competitor in the race for space transport vehicles.

December in particular was a month punctuated by two significant spaceflights. LandSpace's Zhuque-3 and the state-backed Long March-12A each completed their maiden mission carrying satellites to orbit.

While both succeeded in the delivery leg of their inaugural flight, they fell short as far as recovery was concerned. 

Recovering an orbital booster is extremely complex. It requires surviving hypersonic re-entry, withstanding extreme heat, executing multiple engine reignitions and maintaining precision guidance all the way to the landing pad.

SpaceX took nearly a decade to make Falcon 9 land routinely.

For Zhuque-3's recovery attempt, it had reached controlled descent, engine ignition and guidance ­– just not a clean landing, according to the chief commander.

Behind these recovery tests lies China's bold choice to skip traditional aerospace learning curves by attempting recovery tests during maiden flights.

Zhuque-3 is a two-stage, stainless-steel rocket powered by liquid methane oxygen. This type of fuel burns cleaner and thus requires less time to cleanup for reuse. Standing at 66 meters tall, the rocket (Y1) has a maximum takeoff weight of about 570 tonnes, slightly heavier than SpaceX's Falcon 9 and making it one of China's largest launch vehicles to date, second only to the heavy-lift Long March-5.

Once recovery and rapid reuse are achieved, ideally three launches per month, the company said costs could fall toward the $3,000-per-kilogram range – roughly the benchmark Falcon 9 has made for commercially competitive launches.

And the race is widening. In November, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin became the second company in the world to achieve orbital booster reuse during the second mission of its New Glenn rocket, following a decade in development.

Japan's Honda stunned the industry with a surprise vertical launch-and-landing rocket test. India is pursuing spaceplane-style recovery alongside private startups.

In China, multiple reusable rockets are scheduled for new attempts in 2026. Some of them will stick the landing.