China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the main State-owned contractor, closed out the year on Dec 31 with a Long March 7A launch from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan that placed two technology demonstration satellites into orbit. The company conducted 73 launches in 2025, including 69 by Long March rockets and four by its Smart Dragon 3 series, delivering more than 300 spacecraft to space.

China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp flew four Kuaizhou rockets during the year, recording three successful missions and one failure. Private companies expanded their presence with 16 launches, 14 of which achieved mission success. China's annual orbital launch count has increased every year since 2019, following 67 missions, 66 successful, in 2023 and 68 missions, 66 successful, in 2024.

Three new launchers made their debut flights in 2025: Long March 8A, ZQ 3 and Long March 12A, with two of these models designed for reusability. The first Long March 8A mission in February from Wenchang placed the second batch of low Earth orbit satellites for China's State-owned internet constellation into their planned orbit, making the rocket the 18th operational member of the Long March family. Designed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing, Long March 8A stands 50.5 meters tall, has a liftoff mass of 371 metric tons and liftoff thrust of about 480 tons, and has so far flown six missions, all focused on deploying low-orbit internet satellites.

In early December, private firm LandSpace launched its ZQ 3 rocket for the first time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China in China's first attempt to recover an orbital-class reusable rocket. The second stage reached its target orbit, confirming the new model's performance, while the reusable first stage followed its planned return trajectory before breaking up in a fireball over the designated landing area in Minqin county, Gansu province, about 253 kilometers from the launch site. The stainless-steel ZQ 3 is 66.1 meters high, 4.5 meters in diameter and has a fully fueled mass of nearly 560 tons.

Later in December, CASC carried out the maiden flight of its Long March 12A, the tallest rocket yet built in China, also configured for first-stage recovery. As with ZQ 3, the expendable second stage successfully entered orbit, but the reusable first-stage booster crashed and exploded after reentry. Long March 12A, built by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, is 70.4 meters tall, 3.8 meters wide, has a liftoff mass of 437 tons and can place at least 6 tons of payload into low Earth orbit.

China is pursuing a fleet of reusable rockets to cut launch costs and increase mission cadence, following a path first established by United States companies SpaceX and Blue Origin, which currently operate reusable launchers. SpaceX's Falcon 9, which has flown repeatedly with recovered boosters, is the most widely used commercial reusable rocket, and both U.S. firms experienced multiple recovery failures before reaching operational status.

In deep space exploration, China in late May launched its first asteroid sampling mission, Tianwen 2, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province. A Long March 3B rocket sent the robotic probe onto a carefully calculated trajectory toward the near-Earth asteroid 2016 HO3, also known as 469219 Kamo'oalewa, where it will attempt to collect samples for analysis. The spacecraft carries 11 instruments, including multispectral and medium-field color cameras, charged and neutral particle analyzers, a thermal radiation spectrometer and a laser integrated navigation sensor.

China National Space Administration head Shan Zhongde described Tianwen 2 as a long, complex mission with high technical demands. The agency stated that the probe is designed to achieve several goals in one flight, including sampling asteroid 2016 HO3 and performing a flyby of main-belt comet 311P, which shows comet-like activity despite following an asteroid-belt orbit.

Mission designers aim to use Tianwen 2 to prove technologies for sampling weak-gravity bodies, high-precision autonomous navigation and control, and other key maneuvers. They also intend to return samples and data that can clarify how asteroids formed and evolved. The spacecraft is expected to measure size, shape, orbits, spin states and thermal properties of both 2016 HO3 and 311P to support studies of their orbital dynamics.

Researchers plan to investigate the external appearance, composition, internal structure and ejecta of these small bodies, including material thrown out by past impact events. Once samples arrive on Earth, they will be distributed to scientific teams to examine physical properties, mineral and chemical composition and isotopic signatures, helping reconstruct asteroid formation and the conditions in the early solar system.

Asteroid 2016 HO3 was detected in April 2016 by a survey telescope at the Haleakala High Altitude Observatory in Hawaii and is classified as a quasi-satellite of Earth. The object orbits the sun but remains near Earth over long periods, making it the most stable known example of a quasi-satellite rather than a true natural moon. Spectral analyses and other physical measurements suggest 2016 HO3 could be a fragment ejected from the lunar surface during an impact event.

Scientific studies indicate that 2016 HO3 may preserve material dating from the solar system's formation, giving it high research value for understanding composition, formation processes and evolution in the early solar system. China's first asteroid encounter occurred in 2012 when the Chang'e 2 lunar orbiter, operating on an extended mission, performed a flyby of the near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis.

As China's first attempt to return asteroid samples, Tianwen 2 involves a sequence of complex operations that demand precise planning, calculation and execution. Built by the China Academy of Space Technology under CASC, the spacecraft will carry out several trajectory changes to keep targeting 2016 HO3 before entering orbit around the asteroid for remote sensing and site selection for sampling. After these preparations, the probe will descend to the surface to collect material.

If the timeline holds, Tianwen 2 will return to Earth orbit at the end of 2027 and release a reentry capsule to deliver the samples to the surface. Afterward, the spacecraft will use Earth's gravity to slingshot toward 311P, where it is expected to arrive several years later to perform detailed remote observations.

China's human spaceflight program also recorded multiple firsts in 2025. On Nov 4, one day before their planned return, Shenzhou XX commander Senior Colonel Chen Dong and his crewmates discovered small cracks in the viewport window of their return capsule, which engineers suspected were caused by impacts from space debris.

By that time, the Shenzhou XX crew had completed a six-month mission that began in late April and had handed operations of the Tiangong space station to the Shenzhou XXI crew, which arrived on Nov 1. Before the crew rotation, the two teams used a dedicated oven delivered by Shenzhou XXI to prepare grilled chicken wings and black pepper beef steaks, becoming the first astronauts to hold a barbecue in orbit.

After the window damage report, mission managers postponed the Shenzhou XX return and activated emergency procedures, noting that the viewport would face temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius during atmospheric reentry and no longer met safety criteria. Engineers carried out simulation work, tests and risk assessments to identify a safe way to bring the astronauts home under the principle of prioritizing crew safety.

Planners decided that the Shenzhou XX astronauts would ride back in the Shenzhou XXI return capsule, originally assigned to the newer crew. Following several days of preparation, the Shenzhou XX crew landed on Nov 14, concluding a 204-day flight, the longest single mission flown by Chinese astronauts.

Along with personal items and experiment samples, the returning spacecraft carried four mice, two males and two females, that had arrived earlier aboard Shenzhou XXI as subjects for China's first in-orbit experiment on rodent mammals. Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences then monitored changes in behavior, tissues and organs under prolonged weightlessness and confinement.

By late December, researchers reported that one of the mice had given birth to nine pups on Dec 10, six of which were still alive, a survival rate they regarded as normal. They said the mother "is nursing normally" and that the offspring appear active and healthy.

On Nov 25, China launched the uncrewed Shenzhou XXII spacecraft atop a Long March 2F from Jiuquan and docked it to the forward port of the Tianhe core module of Tiangong. The vehicle delivered supplies and mission payloads for the station crew, marking the first flight flown specifically as an emergency-response mission within China's human spaceflight program.

Drawing on experience from previous robotic lunar probes, China advanced its crewed lunar landing plans throughout the year. The China Manned Space Agency reported progress toward a goal of landing astronauts on the moon around 2030, including key ground tests of spacecraft and propulsion systems.

In June, engineers conducted a pad abort test of the next-generation crewed spacecraft Mengzhou at Jiuquan to verify escape and safety systems without risking a crew. In August, they ran a combined landing and takeoff test for the Lanyue crewed lunar lander at a site in Huailai county, Hebei province, marking China's first trial of landing and ascent capabilities for a human-rated vehicle intended for an extraterrestrial surface.

Also in August, teams performed an ignition test of the first-stage propulsion system for the Long March 10 rocket at Wenchang, a launcher that will underpin the crewed lunar architecture. The test firing produced nearly 1,000 tons of combined thrust from the first-stage engines, setting a new national record for engine test power.

China's plan for its first crewed lunar mission uses two Long March 10 launches from Wenchang, sending a Lanyue lander and a Mengzhou spacecraft separately to lunar orbit. Once both vehicles reach their designated orbits, they will rendezvous and dock, after which two astronauts will transfer into Lanyue for descent.

The lander will undock and conduct a powered soft landing on the lunar surface, where the crew will use a rover to perform scientific investigations and collect samples. After completing surface operations, they will reboard Lanyue, which will return them to the waiting spacecraft in lunar orbit.

In the final phase of the mission, the astronauts will transfer collected samples into the Mengzhou vehicle, which will then separate from lunar orbit and carry the crew back to Earth. China has selected a fourth astronaut group to train specifically for lunar landing and surface tasks.

If completed as planned, the mission would make China the second country to land astronauts on the moon, after six Apollo landings conducted by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. The expansion of China's crewed and robotic programs underscores its growing role in global space activity.

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