Zhuque-3 rocket

Lancering van de eerste Chinese commerciële Zhuque-3 raket - Foto's: Landspace

Lancering van de eerste Chinese commerciële Zhuque-3 raket, deze raket vertoont opvallend veel gelijkenissen met de Falcon 9 raket van SpaceX - Foto's: Landspace

Technical Data:

• Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) is a two-stage, medium-to-heavy launch vehicle made of stainless steel and powered by liquid methane fuel. Equipped with nine Tianque-12B engines, five of which can gimbal and four which cannot, the first stage is designed to be recoverable and reusable for up to twenty launches. The rocket will be 76.6 meters long, 4.5 meters in diameter, and have a liftoff weight of approximately 660 tonnes. Its planned payload capacity to low Earth orbit is about 21 tonnes in expendable mode, 18.3 tonnes when the first stage is recovered downrange, and 12.5 tonnes when the first stage returns to the launch site. The maiden flight of Zhuque-3 occurred on 3 December 2025, with the rocket reaching orbit, although the attempted first stage landing failed after "an abnormal combustion" occurred during the landing burn.

Launch List:

External links:

• Wikipedia: Rocket Information
• Spacepage.be: Rocket launch 12/07/23