China has developed vertical rocket landing technology, tested in the sea

CAS Space, a Chinese company owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), says it has successfully completed the vertical landing test of a launch vehicle. This test was done in Haiyang, Yantai city of East China, in the sea. For this, the company used a small demonstrator.

In this test, a jet engine rocket prototype was launched and landed to test guidance, navigation and control systems, software and communications. The firm has released a video showing the 6.9-foot-tall and 93-kg prototype being lifted off from a ship in the sea.

Successful land and sea-based demonstration of powered vertical recovery. This marks another step in #CAS_SPACE 's development towards reusable launch vehicles. pic.twitter.com/Y9eBduouTG

— CAS Space (@cas_space) April 6, 2023

The prototype reached an altitude of about 3,280 feet before touching the sea platform back. According to CAS Space, the test flight shown in the video took around 10 minutes. The company is doing similar tests in the first few months of 2023.

Landing the first stage of the rocket on a sea platform, closer to the launch site, instead of returning it to a solid surface, is expected to save a lot of fuel. SpaceX has already adopted this strategy. It usually brings the first stages of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets aboard ‘drone ships’ deployed at sea several hundred miles from launch sites.

Like the American firm Blue Origin and its New Shepard, CAS Space aims to launch its own reusable orbital rocket in the future, as well as a suborbital rocket for space tourism.

An engineer at CAS Space says that by the end of 2023, the firm could carry out the first test flight of the Near Space Scientific Experiment Platform.