Is China’s LandSpace rocket startup a Real Threat to SpaceX?

LandSpace recently became the first Chinese startup to successfully test a reusable rocket.

This raised an obvious question: is LandSpace a real threat to SpaceX?

Reusability is the single biggest reason SpaceX dominates the launch market today.

LandSpace’s reusable rocket program, built around its methane-fueled Zhuque-3 vehicle, completed a controlled vertical takeoff and landing test in China.

This is a huge milestone.

Reusing rockets slashes costs, increases launch frequency, and allows rapid iteration. Until recently, no private Chinese company had demonstrated this capability in practice.

LandSpace is not starting from zero. The company already flies an orbital rocket, Zhuque-2, which made headlines in 2023 as the world’s first methane-oxygen rocket to reach orbit.

Methane is harder to work with than kerosene, but it burns cleaner and is better suited for reuse. SpaceX made the same fuel choice for Starship. That puts LandSpace on a technically credible path, not a copycat dead end.

But context matters. SpaceX is operating at a completely different scale.

In 2024 alone, SpaceX launched more than 90 missions, most of them using reused Falcon 9 boosters.

Some individual boosters have now flown over 15 times.

That kind of operational experience compounds fast. Every landing improves reliability. Every reuse lowers cost.

LandSpace, by contrast, is still in the early test phase of reuse. A vertical landing test is a starting line, not proof of a system that works at scale.

The cost gap also remains large. SpaceX is estimated to launch a Falcon 9 for around $60–70 million, with internal costs believed to be far lower due to reuse.

Chinese launch prices are less transparent, but industry estimates suggest that even aggressive Chinese startups are still meaningfully more expensive per kilogram to orbit.

Reusability can close that gap, but it doesn’t do so overnight.

Where LandSpace does matter is trajectory.

China clearly does not want to rely only on state-owned launch providers forever.

The government has encouraged private space companies, and capital has followed.

LandSpace has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and has strong institutional backing.

It also operates inside a domestic market that does not need to compete internationally to survive. Chinese government payloads, commercial satellites, and national priorities can keep a launch company busy even if it never wins a Western customer.

That’s the real shift. SpaceX became dominant by out-executing everyone in an open market. LandSpace doesn’t need to beat SpaceX globally to succeed. It only needs to become good enough, cheap enough, and reliable enough to serve China’s growing launch needs. Reusability is the key to that, and LandSpace has now shown it understands this.

Is LandSpace a threat to SpaceX today?

No.

SpaceX still leads by years of experience, launch cadence, and cost discipline.

But LandSpace is a sign that the gap will not stay unchallenged forever.

The bigger change is psychological.

Reusable rockets are no longer a uniquely American startup advantage. They are becoming a baseline expectation. And once that happens, the question shifts from “who can do this at all?” to “who can do it best, cheapest, and most often?”

SpaceX still owns that answer. For now.