On December 8, 2023, a Chinese private rocket company did something no one else had managed before. LandSpace sent its Zhuque-2 vehicle into orbit burning methane. Not kerosene. Not hydrogen. Methane.
The fuel, a mix of liquid oxygen and liquid methane called methalox, has been the holy grail for a generation of engineers. It burns clean. It leaves almost no soot in the engine. It can theoretically be manufactured on Mars. SpaceX has been betting its entire Starship program on the stuff. So has Blue Origin with its BE-4 engine. But until last week, nobody had actually put a methane rocket into orbit.
LandSpace beat them all.
The Zhuque-2 is a medium-class launcher. The report calls it a “medium-class orbital launch vehicle.” That puts it in the same weight class as a Falcon 9, though with less power. Its payload capacity is not specified in the source material, but the rocket is designed for satellite launches and, eventually, deep space missions.
The significance here is not just national pride. Methane offers real advantages over the RP-1 kerosene that powers most of today’s rockets. Kerosene engines gum up. The combustion process leaves carbon deposits inside the engine, limiting reuse. Methane burns almost perfectly clean. For a company like LandSpace, which presumably wants to fly its rockets more than once, that matters.
There is also the Mars argument. The atmosphere of Mars is mostly carbon dioxide. With hydrogen and energy, you can make methane there. A rocket that burns methane could refuel on the red planet. That is a long way off, but the first step is proving the engine works in Earth’s gravity. LandSpace just did that.
The company itself is worth watching. LandSpace is a private Chinese aerospace manufacturer. That fact alone signals something about Beijing’s approach to space. China has long treated its space program as a state monopoly, run through the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. But in recent years, private firms have been allowed to compete. LandSpace is one of the most aggressive. Its success with methalox puts it ahead of every American private company except SpaceX, and even SpaceX has not yet put a methane rocket into orbit. Starship’s upper stage uses methalox, but Starship has not completed an orbital flight as of the source material’s date.
The Zhuque-2’s achievement is technical, but it is also strategic. It gives China an independent capability in methane propulsion. It demonstrates that Chinese private industry can innovate at the frontier of rocket technology. And it puts pressure on American companies to deliver on their own methane promises.
SpaceX is still working through Starship’s test program. Blue Origin has been developing the BE-4 for years. Relativity Space tried a methane rocket called Terran 1 earlier in 2023 and failed to reach orbit. LandSpace just did what none of them could.
What comes next is not specified in the report, but the pattern is clear. Methane rockets are no longer theoretical. The Zhuque-2 has made them real. Other companies will follow. The question is how fast.
For now, LandSpace holds the record. That is a fact no competitor can change.
