When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.China’s Zhuque-3 rocket took off from Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone on December 3, 2025. . | Credit: VCG /Getty ImagesChina is rounding off what has been a year of big progress in space, including major crewed lunar landing tests, new rockets and booster landing attempts, a new deep space mission and even successfully resolving its first human spaceflight emergency.The country has already smashed its previous record for launches in a calendar year (68, set in 2024), amassing more than 80 orbital launch attempts at time of reporting, with a couple of weeks still to go. Two of these launches ended in failure, both from commercial launch providers, but the venerable Long March rocket series continued a long, failure-free run dating back to 2020.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementChina hit a major milestone in 2025 with the country’s first launch and landing attempt of a reusable orbital rocket. Commercial company Landspace successfully sent its first Zhuque 3 rocket into orbit, but the first stage landing effort ended in spectacular failure during the landing burn. To end the year, China is looking to launch its new reusable Long March 12A rocket in late December as China closes in on attaining reusable launch capabilities, a decade after SpaceX successfully landed a Falcon 9 first stage for the first time.Chinese space successes in 2025Driving some of this growth in launches are the country’s two megaconstellations: the national Guowang project and the Shanghai-backed Thousand Sails constellation, both of which are to consist of more than 10,000 satellites each. These are China’s response to SpaceX’s Starlink and other Western low Earth orbit communications constellations. There were 15 launches this year for Guowang alone, but expect launches for these projects to increase in 2026.One area of major progress for China in 2025 was its crewed lunar program. The country aims …
