Space Epoch箭元科技

Space Epoch builds stainless steel methane rockets and lets the ocean do the catching. Its Yuanxingzhe-1 follows the Starship recipe, thin steel tanks, methalox engines, mass production, but swaps the hardest step, precision propulsive landing, for a soft splashdown at sea: the booster descends under power, settles into the water, and is fished out for refurbishment.

In May 2025 a 57 tonne single-engine test article flew to 2.5 kilometres off Shandong, hovered, throttled, splashed down under control, and came out of the water largely intact. On the strength of that, the company broke ground in January 2026 on a factory near Hangzhou sized for 25 rockets a year, billed as the first plant purpose-built around sea-recovered boosters, and raised a Series B the following month.

The distance still to cover is enormous. The orbital vehicle needs nine engines against the test article's one, a working second stage, and proof that saltwater immersion and reuse can coexist, all promised within 2026. The engines come from supplier Jiuzhou Yunjian, so the schedule partly belongs to someone else. And the deal that made global headlines, rocket parcel delivery for Alibaba's Taobao, remains an agreement on paper with nothing flown.