Historic moment! China achieves historic breakthrough by reusing rockets

Today, the Long March 10 Y carrier rocket was launched and successfully sent the satellite into the designated orbit from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan. After the separation of the first and second stage of the rocket, the first stage returned vertically and was successfully recovered using a net capture method on a sea recovery platform. The launch and recovery mission of the first stage was a complete success. This mission marks the first successful implementation of controlled recovery of the first stage of a carrier rocket in China, and also the first time globally that a carrier rocket was recovered using a net capture method, marking a historic breakthrough in China's reusable rocket technology and laying a solid foundation for enhancing China's space access capabilities. The Long March 10 Y carrier rocket has become China's first successfully recovered reusable carrier rocket. The Long March 10 Y carrier rocket is a large liquid carrier rocket with a 5-meter diameter and a two-stage serial configuration developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The first stage uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants, while the second stage uses liquid oxygen and methane propellants. The total liftoff thrust of the rocket is approximately 890 tons, with a liftoff weight of about 760 tons. In its reusable state, the rocket has a payload capacity of 16 tons to low Earth orbit, making it suitable for various tasks such as deploying low Earth orbit satellite constellations and launching large commercial satellites. The reusable state significantly reduces launch costs and provides advantages in terms of high payload capacity and cost-effectiveness. This mission further validated the technology of reusable rocket recovery following the low-altitude demonstration and safe splashdown of previous Long March 10 series rockets. The successful first flight mission validated the overall optimized design technology, high-thrust bottom core force transmission technology, methane self-pressurization technology, and other core key technologies. Particularly, it successfully validated multiple key core technologies for the reuse of the first stage, including propellant management using partitioned tanks, multiple engine startups and high-altitude ignitions, adaptability to complex thermal and force environments, high-precision navigation control, and sea platform net capture recovery. In the future, the Long March 10 Y carrier rocket development team will continue to optimize the rocket's performance and accelerate the iterative upgrading of reusable rocket technology, with the goal of completing a reusable first stage rocket flight by the end of this year.