"Powered by nine methane-fueled engines, the Zhuque-3 (Vermillion Bird-3) rocket climbed away from its launch pad with more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust. The 216-foot-tall (66-meter) launcher headed southeast, soaring through clear skies before releasing its first stage booster about two minutes into the flight. The rocket's upper stage fired a single engine to continue accelerating into orbit. LandSpace confirmed the upper stage "achieved the target orbit" and declared success for the rocket's "orbital launch mission.""
"The Zhuque-3, or ZQ-3, booster stage is architected for recovery and reuse, the first rocket in China with such a design. Made of stainless steel, the first stage arced to the edge of space before gravity pulled it back into the atmosphere. After making it through reentry, the booster was supposed to relight a subset of its engines for a final braking burn before a vertical landing at a prepared location about 240 miles (390 kilometers) downrange from the launch pad."
LandSpace launched the methane-fueled Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) from Jiuquan at 11:02 pm EST and achieved the target orbit with the upper stage. The 66‑meter rocket used nine methane engines producing over 1.7 million pounds of thrust and released its first stage about two minutes into flight. The stainless-steel booster was designed for recovery and reuse, ascending to the edge of space, reentering, and then relighting engines for a planned vertical landing roughly 240 miles downrange. Telemetry indicated an anomaly during the landing burn that prevented a soft touchdown and caused stage debris to fall near the recovery area.
Read at Ars Technica
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