In a pivotal moment for the escalating commercial space race, a leading Chinese firm has encountered its first significant setback in the quest to challenge SpaceX’s Starlink dominance. Meanwhile, international space cooperation has hit a new low, with a veteran Russian cosmonaut abruptly removed from SpaceX’s upcoming astronaut mission amid allegations of espionage.
On December 3, 2025, Beijing-based private space company LandSpace achieved a major milestone by successfully launching its Zhuque-3 rocket into orbit.
Yet the mission stopped short of a breakthrough: the highly anticipated recovery of the reusable first-stage booster failed dramatically, tempering ambitions to surpass U.S. leaders like SpaceX in reusable launch technology.
The Beijing-based company LandSpace launched Zhuque-3 into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (Site 96). The rocket reached low Earth orbit (LEO) with a dummy payload, but the reusable first stage, which is the lower section that lifts the vehicle off the ground, caught fire in the air before crashing near the target recovery site.
“An anomaly occurred after the first-stage engine ignited during the landing phase, preventing a soft landing on the designated recovery pad,” the company said in a statement posted to social media. “The debris landed at the edge of the recovery area, resulting in a failed recovery test.” The company noted that all other parts of the mission, including the lift-off, separation of the first and second stage, and the engine shutdown and restart in the second stage, were all conducted as planned.
“Although this mission did not achieve the predetermined goal of recovering the first stage of the rocket, it verified the correctness and rationality of the entire process plan for testing, launching, and flying the Zhuque-3 rocket,” Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.
China's first reusable rocket, Zhuque-3, sadly failed its maiden flight.
The first stage failed to recover during the landing, but the actual landing point was very close to the expected location.
The second stage successfully entered the predetermined orbit.
Failure is the… pic.twitter.com/U2f7k0VDiY
— Li Zexin 李泽欣 (@XH_Lee23) December 3, 2025
The specific cause behind the crash is still under investigation. The company said that the crew would “conduct a comprehensive review” and continue to “advance the verification and application of reusable rocket technology in future missions.”
Notably, this was the first such attempt by any Chinese space-based company. Had it succeeded, China would have become the second country after the United States to successfully return an orbital-class booster. Additionally, the Chinese firm would have become the third company, after Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, to test a reusable spacecraft.
SpaceX, which China and its private space companies see as a rival, pioneered commercial rocket reusability nearly a decade ago with its Falcon 9 and has essentially revolutionized the US rocket launch industry, which relied mostly on expendable boosters that are discarded in the ocean or linger in orbit after their missions.
Notably, SpaceX became the world’s largest operator the following year and upended the global satellite communications market, enabling it to launch its Starlink satellites in 2019 significantly faster than its competitors.
Reusable rockets are considered crucial because the technology can dramatically cut the cost and turnaround time of rocket launches – a distinct advantage at a time when the commercial space rivalry is heating up and private companies are vying to establish huge satellite networks.
Additionally, these reusable rockets also provide a geopolitical edge for a country as space increasingly becomes a realm linked to military power.
Beijing is reported to have plans to launch two mega-constellations in the coming years, comprising tens of thousands of satellites, to rival the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX Starlink satellite network. And, reusability is the only way for Beijing to achieve that milestone.
Needless to say, China’s first domestically manufactured reusable orbital rocket, if successfully brought to market, will accelerate Beijing’s rise in space and enable it to counter Starlink by enabling a faster cadence of missions and lower launch costs.
It must be noted that Beijing is leveraging the commercial space sector to power its competition with global rivals, of which SpaceX is a big part. China opened the space sector to private capital in 2014, even though China’s space technology market is dominated by state-owned firms.
Of late, the Communist rulers of China have actively integrated private companies into military-related supply chains to leverage their technology and innovation toward military-civilian goals, or civil-military fusion.
While China’s state-owned CASC is still preparing its first Long March 12A reusable hop tests, a commercial upstart just leapfrogged them by two years.
It is noteworthy that, even though the test was successful, it has positioned Landscape ahead of other Chinese companies developing reusable rocket technology in the commercial space sector.
“As low-orbit constellation deployment accelerates, Zhuque-3 will continue to … progress from recovery demonstrations to routine reuse and toward airline-style operational cadence, contributing to China’s space-power objectives,” LandSpace said.
Russian Cosmonaut Out Of SpaceX Mission
A Russian spaceflyer was removed from SpaceX’s next astronaut mission allegedly for violating US national security restrictions.
Oleg Artemyev, of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, was a part of SpaceX’s Crew 12, a four-person mission set to fly into the International Space Station (ISS) as early as February 2026. This flight would have marked the continuation of post-2022 cross-agency crew exchanges to the International Space Station (ISS).
During joint training sessions at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California headquarters in November 2025, Artemyev allegedly used his personal smartphone to photograph sensitive, classified documentation related to SpaceX rocket engines and other proprietary hardware.
He is said to have then attempted to export or transmit these images, breaching the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)—US export control laws that restrict the sharing of defence-related technologies with foreign nationals.
“The cosmonaut allegedly photographed SpaceX documentation and then ‘used his phone’ to export classified information,” The Insider wrote in Russian, citing launch analyst Gregory Trishkin.
“My contacts confirm that a violation occurred and an interdepartmental investigation has been launched,” Trishkin told The Insider. “Removing someone from a mission two and a half months before the mission without a clear explanation is more of an indirect sign, but it’s indicative. It’s very difficult to imagine a situation in which an experienced cosmonaut could inadvertently commit such a gross violation.”
The Insider also referenced a report titled “Yura, Forgive Me!” from a Russian spaceflight channel on Telegram on Sunday, December 1. According to that source, the violations occurred last week, when Artemyev was training at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. He allegedly snapped SpaceX engines and other sensitive gear on his phone.
However, Roscosmos said in a statement on December 2 that a decision was made to transfer Artemyev to another job. He was replaced by fellow cosmonaut Andrei Fedyayev.
In July 2022, Roscosmos uploaded images showing Artemyev and two of his cosmonaut colleagues aboard the ISS carrying the flags of two Russian-backed separatist entities in Ukraine.
The president of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA denounced the photo session, emphasising that the orbiting lab shouldn’t be used as a venue for propaganda during a war.
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