The engineer who directed the recovery of China’s first reusable rocket stage is now preparing his team for the next technical challenge: reflight testing of the same booster hardware. Li Dong, chief designer of the Long March 10B rocket at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), oversaw the successful recovery of the vehicle’s first stage on July 12, 2024. That milestone, according to Chinese state media, prompted Li to declare that the team would now shift focus toward demonstrating that the recovered stage can fly again.
Decades of incremental advancement
Li’s career has paralleled the rise of China’s orbital launch capability. Born in Beijing in 1975, he earned a degree in aerospace engineering from Beihang University in 1998 and joined CALT the following year.
His early work centered on the Long March 2F rocket, the vehicle that has launched every crewed Shenzhou mission. In 2018 he was appointed deputy chief designer of the Long March 8, and in 2021 he became chief designer of the Long March 10 series. The Long March 10 program is widely seen as China’s direct answer to reusable launch technology, incorporating grid fins and landing legs that enable controlled vertical descent and touchdown.
According to his professional biography, Li has published more than 30 papers on rocket propulsion and guidance systems. He is considered a rising star within China’s space engineering community, a reflection of a system that rewards technical depth and long institutional loyalty.
From recovery to reflight
Reflight testing of a recovered booster is a technically demanding process. The stage must undergo thorough inspection for structural fatigue, thermal damage, and wear in the propulsion system before engineers can certify it for a second launch. CASC, the state-owned parent corporation of CALT, has not disclosed a timeline for the reflight attempt.
Li continues to lead the Long March 10B design team at CALT’s headquarters in Beijing, where the next phase of testing is being prepared. He resides in the city with his wife and two children.
The industry will be watching for the first reflight attempt. A successful outcome would validate years of work on grid fins, landing legs, and guidance algorithms – and give China a reusable booster that can fly again.
Broader context of reusable rockets
Reusable rocket technology marks a fundamental shift in launch-vehicle design, allowing first-stage boosters to land intact and be flown again instead of being discarded after a single use. China’s push into this area follows a broader global trend that began with early experimental programs in the mid-20th century and gained momentum as spaceflight evolved from purely government-led efforts to include commercial and military applications.
The concept took a major step forward in the 2010s when private companies demonstrated controlled vertical landings of orbital-class boosters, proving that rapid turnaround and reflight were feasible. Those developments encouraged other spacefaring nations to pursue their own reusable designs. For China, mastering reflight testing would signal a new level of technical maturity in its space program.
Reusable rockets promise to lower the cost and frequency of access to space, enabling more missions for science, communications, and national security. Li Dong’s career mirrors this evolution: after joining the state-owned aerospace sector in the late 1990s, he contributed to the Long March 2F that carried China’s first astronauts into orbit, then to the Long March 8, and now the Long March 10 series – the country’s most direct attempt at fielding a reusable launcher.
