A groundbreaking breakthrough in rocket reusability marks the beginning of the second phase of commercial spaceflight.

Figure 1. The offshore recovery platform successfully recovered the first stage of the Long March 10B carrier rocket using a net-based capture method.

This mission marks my country's first successful controlled recovery of a first-stage rocket, and also the world's first successful net-system recovery of a launch vehicle. It signifies a historic breakthrough for my country in the field of reusable rocket technology and will lay a solid foundation for accelerating the improvement of my country's space access capabilities. The Long March 10B launch vehicle is my country's first successfully recovered...Reusable launch vehicles。

For a long time, China's commercial aerospace industry has been in the first half of a hardware competition: the industry has been focusing on developing hardware such as rockets and satellite platforms. High launch costs and limited launch capacity have created a "too many satellites, too few rockets" contradiction, continuously hindering the large-scale construction of China's low-Earth orbit satellite constellations. Several leading securities firms, in their latest industry research reports, pointed out that the Long March 10B's successful controllable recovery of a domestically produced reusable rocket marks a significant technological leap from zero to one for China's reusable rockets.With several reusable launch vehicles entering the verification and return-to-flight cycle, the two core pain points of low-Earth orbit satellite constellation networking—cost and capacity—are expected to be significantly alleviated, accelerating the "flight-like" process of space transportation.Downstream satellite development, constellation operation andSatellite applicationsEnterprises will benefit significantly, and a trillion-yuan-level commercial aerospace industry closed loop is expected to take shape more quickly.

CITIC Securities points out that the large-scale application of reusable rockets can realize the reuse of key components such as the rocket body and engine, changing the high-cost, single-use model of traditional rockets. Combined with the advantages of low-loss and easy-to-maintain recoverable rockets from the maritime satellite network, subsequent batch launches will significantly reduce the single-launch cost of missions such as commercial satellite networking, commercial space experiments, and low-Earth orbit constellation deployment in my country, reducing the burden on commercial aerospace companies, increasing efficiency, and stimulating market innovation.

According to Galaxy Securities analysis, in the traditional expendable rocket model, high-value assets such as the rocket body structure and engines account for more than 70% of the launch cost. Take SpaceX as an example.Falcon 9For example, by recovering and reusing the first stage, the cost of a single launch can be reduced from approximately US$50 million to approximately US$18.5 million, a reduction of over 60%. According to industry analysis, the overall cost of a single launch of the Long March 10B in its reusable state can be reduced by more than 40%; if we consider the rapid repair and reuse of the rocket body to compress the launch interval to 72 hours, the cost reduction potential is expected to be further expanded, with a maximum reduction of up to 80%.

CITIC Securities stated that with the maturity of recycling and reuse technology, rockets do not need to be manufactured entirely anew each time, and a closed loop of "launch-recovery-maintenance-relaunch" can be achieved, greatly shortening the rocket production and delivery cycle. This will better meet the high-density and high-frequency launch needs of current low-orbit satellite internet, meteorological remote sensing, communication and navigation fields, and break through the bottleneck of insufficient domestic commercial aerospace launch capacity.

Furthermore, under the ITU's first-come, first-served rule, my country faces significant pressure to secure launch frequencies and orbits. Guojin Securities suggests that the pressure is expected to ease once reusable rockets become available. The successful deployment of the Long March 10B reusable rocket provides a core solution, with its large launch capacity and reusability significantly reducing launch costs and increasing annual delivery capacity, opening a window for the mass deployment of low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellations. 2026-2027 will be a watershed moment for the domestic commercial rocket landscape, with companies achieving stable recovery and reuse gaining an advantage in the national satellite constellation supply chain. The large-scale deployment of reusable rockets will systematically improve launch supply flexibility and substantially alleviate the strategic capacity gap for my country's LEO satellite constellation deployment.

In the value balance of commercial spaceflight, satellites are the foundation, rockets are the support, but applications and services are the core keys that determine the scale of the industry. As the industry consensus states: rockets determine the upper limit, satellites determine the capability, and applications and services determine the scale.

In the past, the industry focused on hardware indicators such as satellite platforms and rocket thrust. With the later deployment of low-cost, high-frequency launch vehicles, the value of satellites is no longer limited to "successful orbit insertion," but rather on unlocking their practical value through payload capabilities. High-value-added satellite applications, such as hyperspectral remote sensing, will inject core momentum into the trillion-dollar commercial aerospace industry. Commercial aerospace will move beyond the hardware-driven competition of the first half and enter a new development stage centered on space information services.

Compared to traditional optical satellites, hyperspectral satellites are like a combination of a "super magnifying glass" and a "spectral analyzer" in space. They can capture hundreds of spectral information invisible to the human eye—just like giving every substance on Earth a "material fingerprint." They possess core capabilities of "material identification, composition inversion, and quantitative monitoring," much like giving Earth a "CT scan." They can upgrade from "qualitative imaging" to "quantitative analysis" and are currently serving key areas such as natural resources, ecological and environmental protection, emergency management, agricultural and forestry economy, and dual-carbon monitoring.

As the cost of reusable rockets is reduced, the cost of deploying hyperspectral satellite constellations in batches will decrease significantly, the pace of network construction will accelerate, and the commercial closed loop of aerospace information services for all industries will be officially established.