{"id":299382,"date":"2025-09-20T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T13:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/?p=299382"},"modified":"2025-09-18T17:00:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T21:00:42","slug":"chinas-tianlong-3-completes-key-thrust-test","status":"publish","type":"noticias","link":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/news\/chinas-tianlong-3-completes-key-thrust-test\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s Tianlong-3 completes key thrust test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

China’s space program has just marked a firm step forward with the successful test of the first stage of the Tianlong-3 rocket.<\/strong> Space Pioneer, the Beijing-based startup responsible for the project, conducted the test on an offshore platform in Shandong province. <\/p>\n\n

For 35 seconds, the nine Tianhuo-12 engines worked together achieving nearly 1,000 tons of thrust<\/strong>. This result brings the Tianlong-3 closer to its first orbital orbital launch<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n

Private startups and government backing for Tianlong-3<\/h2>\n\n

The Tianlong-3 is not competing alone. LandSpace, with its Zhuque-3<\/a><\/strong>and the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) with the Long March-12A, are part of the group seeking to consolidate China as a leader in reusable rockets. <\/p>\n\n

While Space Pioneer expects to exceed 30 missions per year, LandSpace is targeting its inaugural launch before the end of the year and Long March-12A maintains its goal of an orbital debut in 2025.<\/p>\n\n

Satellite constellations in play<\/h2>\n\n

The real driver behind this competition is the deployment of megaconstellations in low orbit. Projects such as Guowang<\/a><\/strong> and Qianfan require thousands of broadband satellites<\/a><\/strong> and have so far achieved only a tiny fraction of their targets. <\/p>\n\n

A shortage of launchers limits progress, so the arrival of vehicles such as Tianlong-3 could change the picture.<\/p>\n\n

Competition with spacex<\/h2>\n\n

The SpaceX’s Falcon 9<\/a><\/strong> set the benchmark for reusable launchers more than a decade ago. With similar payload capacities-around 18 tons to low orbit-the Tianlong-3 and its direct rivals represent China’s answer to U.S. supremacy. Reusability of the first stages, projected between 10 and 20 cycles, is key to offering more frequent and lower-cost launches. <\/p>\n\n

Last year, a test failure caused the Tianlong-3 to explode, while LandSpace suffered a setback with the Zhuque-2E in July. Even the Long March-12A is facing doubts following a vertical landing test<\/a><\/strong> with no public results. These stumbles evidence the complexity of moving toward a new generation of reusable rockets. <\/p>\n\n

Source and photo: myNews<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tianlong-3 achieved nearly 1,000 tons of thrust in its test, bringing China closer to reusable rocket orbital operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9014,"featured_media":298803,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categoria_noticias":[13064,13030],"etiqueta_noticias":[],"class_list":["post-299382","noticias","type-noticias","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categoria_noticias-aerospace","categoria_noticias-industry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/299382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticias"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/299382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categoria_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categoria_noticias?post=299382"},{"taxonomy":"etiqueta_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/etiqueta_noticias?post=299382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}