Reusability

SpaceX booster B1067 completed its record-breaking 34th launch and landing on March 30, 2026, lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral at 5:15 p.m. EDT with 29 Starlink satellites on the Starlink 10-44 mission. The booster recovered on droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. B1067 entered the fleet in June 2021 and has supported crewed missions including Crew-3 and Crew-4, two NASA CRS cargo flights, and 23 Starlink batches. The record eclipses the previous mark of 33 flights set by the same booster one month earlier.

LandSpace presented its 2026 roadmap at the UN COPUOS Scientific and Technical Subcommittee in February 2026, confirming a second ZhuQue-3 orbital flight and first-stage recovery attempt targeting Q2 2026, with an identical vehicle configuration to the December debut plus software and control refinements. If the Q2 recovery succeeds, the retrieved stage will be refurbished and used in a reuse demonstration flight in Q4 2026. The company plans to manufacture 10 rockets and 100 engines in 2026 and has secured Guowang megaconstellation launch contracts and had its STAR IPO application accepted in December 2025, seeking 7.5 billion yuan (~$1 billion).

On February 11, 2026, China successfully conducted a combined maximum dynamic pressure abort test of the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft and the first powered flight of the Long March 10A rocket from Wenchang Space Launch Site, Hainan. The Mengzhou capsule abort system executed clean separation from the LM-10 first stage at ~11km altitude at maximum dynamic pressure. Four historic firsts: first ignition of LM-10 in prototype configuration; first maximum dynamic pressure abort test of a Chinese crewed spacecraft; first maritime splashdown of both a Chinese crewed capsule and rocket first stage; first use of the new Wenchang lunar mission launch pad. The LM-10 first stage recovered at sea after a controlled splashdown — demonstrating first-stage reuse capabilities. Recovery crews retrieved the capsule 80 minutes after liftoff.

LandSpace launched the inaugural flight of its ZhuQue-3 reusable methalox rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on December 3, 2025. The second stage successfully reached a planned 200 x 200 km orbit inclined at 55 degrees — a significant milestone for Chinese commercial launch. However, the first-stage landing attempt approximately 390 km downrange in Wuwei County, Gansu, failed after an anomalous combustion event during the final landing burn. LandSpace confirmed that key phases of the recovery sequence — high-altitude gliding, grid fin deployment, attitude adjustment, and reentry burn — performed as designed, providing valuable data for the next attempt.

Blue Origin's second New Glenn flight on November 13, 2025 achieved full mission success: the ESCAPADE twin spacecraft were deployed to their loiter orbit en route to Mars, and the first stage booster "Never Tell Me the Odds" landed on the Jacklyn platform vessel in the Atlantic — making Blue Origin only the second company ever to recover an orbital-class booster. The flight certified New Glenn for NASA and set up future Blue Moon lunar lander missions.