Zhuque-3 / 朱雀三号
【重听】朱雀三号副总师：火箭回收只有成与败，没有中间态 | S9E41 adds the vehicle-design and first-flight failure details behind the later Yao-2 milestone. 董凯 describes Zhuque-3 as a liquid-oxygen/methane, stainless-steel reusable rocket whose complete configuration is about 76 meters long, with nine first-stage engines and one second-stage engine.
The replay source says the 2025 first-flight vehicle was about 10 meters shorter than the complete version and used lower-thrust 12A engines rather than the planned 12B engines. It reached orbit, but recovery failed near the landing point when terminal landing ignition did not establish thrust across the planned five-engine sequence. The episode therefore adds Rocket Recovery Binary Outcome: orbit insertion can pass while recovery remains a failure.
The same source links Zhuque-3 to Reuse-First Rocket Design and Recovery Range Payload Tradeoff. Dong says the first flight used a conservative roughly 390 km recovery range for safety, while a fuller-performance reusable mission would put the recovery field around 550-600 km away and trade less propellant reserve for more payload.
蓝箭航天完成中国首次陆地火箭回收，宇树科技市值超过 3000 亿 updates the Zhuque-3 branch from anticipated recovery capability to a reported land-recovery success. The episode says Zhuque-3 Yao-2 launched on August 19, 2026 and its first stage landed in Gansu / 甘肃, making it China’s first successful land recovery of a carrier rocket in the source’s account.
Zhuque-3 is the LandSpace / 蓝箭航天 reusable-rocket project used as a comparison case in 如何「兜住」一颗火箭？｜ S10E21. The episode says an earlier Zhuque-3 attempt performed well through much of flight and guidance, but final landing ignition became unstable and recovery failed.
The source frames Zhuque-3 as part of China’s commercial reusable-rocket track. Jerry / 太空僧 argues that failures can still produce valuable real-flight data, and the episode treats a future Zhuque-3 success as a possible confidence signal for commercial space if it combines orbital delivery with successful recovery.
Connections
- LandSpace / 蓝箭航天 — company associated with the Zhuque-3 project in the episode.
- Dong Kai / 董凯 — overall deputy chief designer explaining the rocket’s design route and recovery standard.
- Long March 10B / 长征十号乙 and Long March 12A / 长征十二号甲 — Chinese comparison cases for reusable-rocket recovery progress.
- Rocket Recovery Route Choice — route question around landing legs versus more platform-heavy approaches.
- Rocket Recovery Binary Outcome, Recovery Range Payload Tradeoff, and Reuse-First Rocket Design — source-specific engineering concepts added by the replay.
- Reusable Rocket Economics — larger economic target behind successful recovery.
- Gansu / 甘肃 — landing setting named in the later source.