Morgan Stanley: China’s rocket recovery debut flight is a success, SpaceX faces a long-term threat

Deep Tide TechFlow news. According to market-direction research, on July 10, a report by Morgan Stanley stated that China’s Long March 10 B rocket completed its first orbital flight and successfully achieved a maritime recovery, becoming the third entity in the world to master orbital-class rocket recovery technology, and its technical route has now been fully opened. Long March 10 B is the reusable single-core version within the Long March 10 family; in a reusable configuration, its payload capacity is about 16 tons. A US Space Force official earlier this year estimated that China would need about 3.5 years to master rocket reuse technology, and this first flight may accelerate that timeline.

In 2025, China completed 90 orbital launches, second only to SpaceX’s 165. Reusable rockets currently under development by commercial companies such as LandSpace are expected to enter operation in phases from 2026 to 2027. China plans LEO satellite constellations of 12,992 satellites for the State Grid, 15,000 for Qianfan, and 10,000 for Honghu. Orbital computing has been written into the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan; the “XingSuan” orbital supercomputing network with 2,800 satellites has already been launched. Morgan Stanley believes China is SpaceX’s biggest long-term competitive threat.