China's new Attempt to Catch rocket by Clone SpaceX Chopstick BUT...

Catch, catch, catch. We're going to be hearing that word a lot in the coming months because SpaceX isn't the only company pursuing tower-based rocket recovery. Halfway around the world, China is working toward the same goal, and one company worth watching is Cosmoleap. We've covered them before, but now they're back with new hardware, new plans, and a surprisingly familiar vision. A fully reusable rocket designed to launch, return, and eventually be caught. Sound familiar? So with China pursuing the same recovery concept as SpaceX, how close could Cosmoleap actually get? Let's take a closer look. China's private space industry has been developing at a remarkable pace, and one of the more interesting examples is Cosmoleap. We first covered the company last year when it became one of the first Chinese private companies to publicly pursue a rocket recovery system inspired by SpaceX's tower catch concept. And if you're new to the channel, make sure you subscribe to GreatSpaceX. We've covered Cosmoleap before, and we'll leave those videos in the description so you can check them out after this episode. But who exactly is Cosmoleap? Also known as Dahang Yuchuan, Cosmoleap is a Chinese commercial space startup founded in February of 2024 and headquartered in Beijing. The company is developing reusable medium-to-large rockets around one central idea, ground catch. Its recovery system uses a tower-mounted pair of robotic arms to catch the returning booster, similar in concept to SpaceX's Mechazilla. The logic is straightforward. The rocket doesn't need to carry landing legs or other recovery hardware all the way back down. That can potentially reduce vehicle mass, increase payload capacity, shorten turnaround time, and ultimately reduce launch costs. Cosmoleap's main vehicle is LEAP-1 or UHN-1. The rocket is expected to stand around 70 meters tall and measure approximately 4.2 meters in diameter. It will use liquid methane and liquid oxygen and is designed to produce roughly 720 tons of thrust from nine YF-209 engines. The company says LEAP-1 could carry around 18 tons to low-Earth orbit in expendable configuration, or roughly 12 tons when recovering the first stage. That booster is reportedly designed for up to 20 flights. Cosmoleap is also developing its own Qingyu-11 engine and has reportedly raised around 600 million yuan for the program. And now, the company is moving deeper into hardware testing. In a recent update, Cosmoleap announced two significant achievements. First, it completed static structural testing of the second-stage avionics bay. Second, it completed hot-fire calibration testing of the second-stage YQ-1 engine. These aren't full vehicle tests yet, they're component-level tests, and that's an important stage in any new rocket program. Engineers can find problems while the hardware is still relatively isolated, before those components are integrated into an entire launch vehicle. But these tests also highlight something that's easy to overlook. The second stage matters just as much as the booster. The booster gets all the attention because it's the part that comes back. It's the part that lands. It's the part that gets caught. But the second stage still has to deliver the payload to orbit. Without a reliable upper stage, a reusable booster doesn't have much to do. Cosmoleap now appears to be moving from individual component testing toward larger-scale testing. The company plans to conduct static-fire tests for both stages. The second stage is expected to be tested this year. While the first-stage campaign is planned for the first half of 2027, that's when we'll start getting a much better idea of what LEAP-1 can actually do. And if the current schedule holds, the first flight could follow in 2027. That's also when Cosmoleap's recovery attempt, Recovery Concept, could finally move from animation to hardware. After separation, the booster would use its engines and grid fins to return toward the recovery zone. As it approaches the tower, robotic arms would extend into position. The booster would guide itself between them, and the arms would close around the vehicle. Cosmoleap has also shown some interesting variations on that idea. In its introductory video, the company showed both a land-based caching tower and another concept mounted on an offshore platform. That could give the system more flexibility. A launch doesn't always produce a trajectory that makes a return to the launch site practical. An offshore recovery platform could potentially be positioned where the booster needs to come down. And Cosmoleap's launch and caching systems are designed as separate structures. The launch tower handles liftoff, the catch tower handles recovery, so the recovery hardware doesn't necessarily have to sit directly above the launch infrastructure. It could potentially operate independently on land or offshore. Of course, that flexibility comes with a trade-off. More recovery locations also mean more infrastructure to build and operate. Still, the architecture is clearly defined. Cosmoleap wants to move from component testing to stage testing to a first flight and eventually a rocket catch. And it's not alone. Landspace has been working on recovering the Zhuchui-3 first stage. CASC has also explored recovery attempts for long-march vehicles, including a cable-based system demonstrated at sea. So, multiple Chinese organizations are now exploring different approaches to reusable launch systems. And that brings us back to SpaceX. Because while Cosmoleap is preparing for its first flight, SpaceX is approaching a very different milestone. Ship Recovery. Flight 14's first Starship mission to enter orbit. Flight 15 could become the first attempt to catch ship. Musk has said that Flight 14 would be the final mission before SpaceX attempts to recover ship, with the target potentially as early as October or November. Musk has also put the odds of that first catch succeeding at around 50-60%. That tells us just how difficult the next step is. SpaceX has already demonstrated that Mechazilla can catch Super Heavy. Since Flight 5 in 2024, the booster has been successfully recovered multiple times. But ship presents an entirely different set of problems. It has to survive an orbital mission, re-enter the atmosphere at much higher speeds, withstand extreme thermal loads, perform the belly flop maneuver, flip back to a vertical orientation, ignite its engines, and arrive at the tower with enough precision for the CHOP-6 to catch it. That's why SpaceX has already been running realistic catch simulations. With S-42 at Pad 2, the company has tested its interaction with the tower arms, mechanical alignment, damping, lateral movement, and rapid redocking procedures. These tests are rehearsals for a recovery sequence that will eventually have to work with a vehicle coming back from space. And this is where the comparison with Cosmoleap gets especially interesting. SpaceX has been developing reusable rockets for more than a decade, Falcon 9 has accumulated years of operational experience, Starship has completed numerous test flights, and the program has generated real-world data on propulsion, aerodynamics, thermal protection, re-entry, and recovery. Even Super Heavy has already been caught by the tower multiple times. Cosmoleap is at a much earlier stage. Again, the company was founded in 2024. Leap 1 hasn't flown yet. Its engines and recovery systems are still being tested, and none of those individual systems has yet been proven together on an actual mission. There's also a difference in scale. Leap 1 is roughly 70 meters tall and is designed for payload performance in the general range of Falcon 9. Starship is nearly 120 meters tall and is designed around a dramatically larger payload capacity. More importantly, SpaceX isn't trying to recover only the booster, it's trying to recover the entire launch system. Super Heavy, the ship, and eventually fly both again and again. That's a much broader technical challenge. So the interesting question isn't whether Cosmoleap is using an idea that resembles SpaceX's, because it is. The real question is whether the company can turn that architecture into a reliable launch system. Because a pair robotic arms is only one piece of the puzzle. The engines have to work, the vehicle has to fly, the guidance system has to hit the recovery corridor, the recovery hardware has to capture the booster without damaging it, the launch infrastructure has to support repeated operations, and then comes the part that ultimately determines whether the system is truly reusable. Doing it again, and again, and again. That's where flight experience becomes so important. If SpaceX successfully catches ship on Flight 15, it will have demonstrated another major piece of its full reusability architecture. For Cosmoleap, that milestone is still several steps away. First, Leap 1 has to launch, then the booster has to return, then it has to be caught, then the vehicle has to be inspected and refurbished, and eventually it has to fly again. That's the real test of reusable rocketry. Not whether the rocket looks similar, not whether the tower looks similar, but whether the complete system can launch, return, recover, and fly again. And that's what makes the next few years so interesting. SpaceX is approaching its first attempt to catch ship. Cosmoleap is approaching its first launch. Two companies, two reusable rocket programs, and two very different points on the same technological road. The question now is no longer whether the concept can be demonstrated on paper, it's how quickly Cosmoleap can turn its hardware into flight experience, and what SpaceX will have achieved by the time it gets there. There's no denying that China's commercial space industry is moving quickly. Cosmoleap has gone from a relatively young startup to testing real flight hardware in a remarkably short period. The company has already completed important component tests, laid out static fire campaigns for both stages, and is targeting a first Leap 1 launch in 2027. And Cosmoleap isn't the only company moving in this direction. Across China's commercial and state-backed space sector, multiple teams are now exploring reusable rockets and different approaches to recovery. That could make the next few years increasingly competitive, but there's an important distinction between developing the same kind of architecture and actually operating it. SpaceX has spent years building up flight experience with Falcon 9 and Starship. Super Heavy has already demonstrated controlled recovery and tower catches, and now Starship is moving toward an even harder milestone, recovering ship. Flight 15 could take the next step by attempting to catch the ship with the Mechazilla tower. If SpaceX reaches that milestone, it would provide another major piece of the full reusability architecture. For Cosmoleap, that stage is still ahead. Leap 1 first has to fly, then recover its booster, then demonstrate that the vehicle can be inspected, refurbished, and flown again. That's where the difference between a concept and an operational system becomes clear. And that gap won't be closed simply by building a similar rocket or recovery tower. It has to be closed through testing, flight experience, recovery, and repeated operations. So the really interesting part of this competition isn't simply who has the impressive looking rocket today. It's what these companies can actually demonstrate over the next few years. Can Cosmoleap turn Leap 1 into a reliable, reusable launch vehicle? Can SpaceX make ship recovery work? And once both systems begin flying regularly, how quickly will the technology evolve? We're going to find out. And there's another Chinese company I haven't even mentioned yet. Recently, I came across Nayuta Space and its Xuanyao FR rocket, which bears some striking similarities to Starship. If you'd like to see a full episode on that vehicle, let me know in the comments by saying, let's do it, Kevin. In any case, folks, thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.