By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Chinese companies developing reusable commercial rockets will have access to a fast track to initial public offerings of shares in the market that exempts them from some financial requirements, the Shanghai Stock Exchange said on Friday.
Beijing is trying to close a gap in its space capabilities compared to the United States, which has all but mastered the ability to return, recover and reuse a rocket’s first stage, or booster, after it is launched.
The fast track exempts Chinese rocket companies from minimum profitability and revenue limits and instead requires them to have achieved key technological milestones, including a successful orbital launch using reusable rocket technology.
China targets SpaceX
Currently, the North American SpaceX, billionaire Elon Musk’s aerospace company, has a near monopoly on this technology, and its exclusive Falcon 9 rocket is the only reusable model that is regularly launched and used to put satellites into orbit.
Earlier this month, China’s leading private rocket company LandSpace became the first domestic entity to conduct a full reusable rocket test with the launch of its new Zhuque-3 model, signaling ambition to catch up to SpaceX.
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Although the launch failed to complete the crucial step of retrieving the rocket propellant, a flurry of Chinese state-owned and private companies are now racing to test launch their own reusable rockets.
LandSpace has already said it wants to demonstrate a successful recovery of the rocket in mid-2026, when Zhuque-3 will be launched for a second time. But she said the capital-intensive nature of rocket development means it will need access to China’s capital markets if it wants to compete with SpaceX.
Shanghai exchange rules do not dictate that rocket companies must successfully recover a rocket, only that reusable rocket technology be used to put a satellite into orbit, something LandSpace has already achieved with this month’s launch.
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Companies that carry out national missions or participate in large state-led space projects will receive priority support under the new guidelines, which will take effect immediately, highlighting the close alignment between commercial launch activity and China’s broader strategic goals.
China has repeatedly described SpaceX’s monopoly on low-Earth orbit satellites as a national security risk and is actively promoting its own satellite constellations, which it expects to number in the tens of thousands in the coming decades.
