BEIJING, July 10 — China’s space ambitions are accelerating. The successful recovery of a Long March 10B rocket booster marks a critical step toward Beijing’s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030, according to officials. For India and other regional players, this signals a new phase in the competitive dynamics of low-cost space access.
The Long March 10B is part of China’s next-generation launch vehicle family, which includes the Long March 10 crewed version and the Long March 10A, which flies without boosters. These rockets are designed to support crewed lunar missions, a milestone China has targeted for the end of this decade.
The booster recovery is a key technical achievement, reducing launch costs and enabling more frequent missions. China’s space budget is estimated at $15 billion annually, second only to the United States’ $25 billion NASA budget. That spending underpins a program that began with the launch of its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1, in 1970.
The country achieved its first crewed spaceflight in 2003 with Shenzhou 5, carrying astronaut Yang Liwei. Since then, China has built and completed the Tiangong space station in 2023, which is permanently crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts.
Lunar milestones and market stakes
China has also conducted robotic lunar missions, including Chang’e 4, which made the first-ever landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019, and Chang’e 5, which returned lunar samples to Earth in 2020. These achievements have positioned China as a serious competitor in deep-space exploration, analysts note. For India, which operates its own successful space program, the Long March 10B recovery underscores the intensifying race for cost-efficient launch capabilities.
India’s own reusable launch vehicle technology demonstrator program has made progress, but China’s ability to scale its next-generation rockets could reshape the commercial launch market across Asia. The booster recovery is not merely a technical exercise.
It directly supports China’s goal of reducing per-launch costs, a factor that will determine which nation captures a larger share of the global satellite deployment market. With an estimated number of satellites expected to be launched over the next decade, the economics of reusable rockets are becoming central to national space strategies.
What to watch next
The Long March 10 family is expected to undergo further test flights before the crewed lunar mission target of 2030. Industry watchers will be tracking how quickly China can operationalize the booster recovery system and whether it can match the cost reductions achieved by other reusable rockets. For India and other Asian space programs, the window to compete on price is narrowing.
