{"id":147999,"date":"2025-07-18T13:22:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/?p=147999"},"modified":"2025-07-18T13:22:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:22:50","slug":"private-chinese-company-landspace-reveals-its-starship-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/private-chinese-company-landspace-reveals-its-starship-ambitions\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Private\u2019 Chinese company Landspace reveals its \u2018Starship\u2019 ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

FPI<\/span><\/strong> \/ July 18, 2025<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Geostrategy-Direct<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

By <\/em><\/span>Richard Fisher<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In mid-June China\u2019s largest and most successful \u201cprivate\u201d space company Landspace (or Blue Arrow Space Technology) revealed its ambition to build a 10-meter diameter reusable space launch vehicle (SLV) perhaps by 2030 \u2014 a potential great prize for China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) controlled space program.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Later this year, Landspace intends to launch its Zhuque-3, perhaps China\u2019s first reusable first-stage SLV, comparable in performance to the workhorse SpaceX Falcon-9. \/ via @truthful_ast on X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Founded only in 2015, Landspace, has not heavily promoted its 10-meter SLV like its ongoing Zhuque-2, the world\u2019s first methane powered rocket that put 6 tons into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), or the 23 ton to LEO Zhuque-3 that could become China\u2019s first reusable first-stage SLV. However, its revelation is an indication of great ambitions of Landspace to become a world-class SLV maker.<\/p>\n

If successful, Landspace\u2019s 10-meter reusable rocket (Zhuque-4 ?) would place it in competition with the 10.6-meter diameter Long March-9 (LM-9) reusable SLV of the leading state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), and the U.S. SpaceX Corporation\u2019s 9-meter diameter reusable Starship SLV.<\/p>\n

This early image indicates that Landspace may not yet have a reusable second stage for this new SLV, which is key to the Starship\u2019s success and is planned for the LM-9, but this could still be in its long-range plans.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, this represents amazing progress for Landspace, and this analyst had the opportunity to interview its founder Zhang Changwu at the 2016 International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.<\/p>\n

At that time Zhang explained that Landspace\u2019s strategy was to access CASC\u2019s solid-fuel Long March-11 SLV technology to make its own line of solid fuel SLVs, but at the 2017 Paris Airshow CASC officials noted curtly to this analyst that they would not be subsidizing a competitor with their LM-11 technology.<\/p>\n

This forced Landspace, also known by the name Blue Arrow Space Technology, to pivot to the development of liquid fuel SLVs, and it has moved quickly to both copy and compete with Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX Corporation by building up to the development of reusable SLVs that stress the use of economical stainless steel and lighter-weight liquid methane fuel.<\/p>\n

Full Text<\/strong><\/span><\/a> . . . . Current Edition<\/span><\/a> . . . . Subscription Information<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Free Press International<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FPI \/ July 18, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher In mid-June China\u2019s largest and most successful \u201cprivate\u201d space company Landspace (or Blue Arrow Space Technology) revealed its ambition to build a 10-meter diameter reusable space launch vehicle (SLV) perhaps by 2030 \u2014 a potential great prize for China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) controlled space program. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":148000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,40,9,121,10,12,5],"tags":[175,6],"class_list":["post-147999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusives","category-geostrategy-direct","category-rest-of-the-best","category-space","category-top-stories","category-world-links","category-world-tribune","tag-private-chinese-company-landspace-reveals-its-starship-ambitions","tag-worldtribune-com","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}