On June 23, 2024, China successfully completed its first 10 km-level vertical takeoff and landing flight test of a reusable launch vehicle at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, signaling a complete success of the flight test. This marks the largest vertical takeoff and landing flight test of a reusable launch vehicle in China to date and the first application of a domestically developed deep-throttling liquid oxygen-methane engine in a 10-km return flight, laying a solid technical foundation for the scheduled first flight of a 4-meter-class reusable launch vehicle in 2025.

This flight test adopts a 3.8-meter diameter rocket body structure, equipped with three 70-ton class liquid oxygen-methane engines and a full-scale landing cushioning system. The launch vehicle achieves pinpoint vertical soft landing through takeoff ascent and variable-thrust descent, which fully verifies the VTOL structure of the 3.8-meter diameter rocket body, high-load landing cushioning technology, large-thrust highly variable reusable engine technology, high-precision navigation guidance and control technology for return and landing, and health monitoring technology.

Among them, the high-load landing cushioning system verifies the “flight locking, mid-air deployment, and contact energy absorption” technology for the first time at home. The large-thrust highly variable reusable engine system successfully verifies the overall compatibility between multiple parallel deep-throttling liquid oxygen-methane engines and the launch vehicle for the first time. The return landing control system has the full-process autonomous online planning and adaptive interference compensation capabilities, which achieved the pinpoint soft landing under strong interference with “dual-zero states” (approaching zero in terms of both altitude and velocity), reaching an internationally advanced level.

The success of this flight test marks a significant breakthrough in the development of reusable launch vehicles in China. In the future, Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology will accelerate the development of reusable launch vehicles on this basis, continuously improve the comprehensive performance of space transportation systems, expand its abilities for convenient access to space, and expedite the upgrading of launch vehicles in China, thereby promoting the construction of a leading aerospace nation.