LandSpace's BF-20 Engine Reaches 220 Tons of Thrust in Latest Comprehensive Tests
The full-flow staged-combustion liquid methane and liquid oxygen engine has fired up dozens of times in the last six months.
LandSpace shared on March 6th that its propulsion teams have completed comprehensive tests with the company’s in-development full-flow staged-combustion Blue Flame-20 (蓝焱-20) engine, commonly shortened to BF-20.
For recent tests of the engine, LandSpace detailed that the engine reached a peak thrust of 220 tons (a level just slightly lower than SpaceX’s ‘Raptor 2’) while burning liquid methane and liquid oxygen. While reaching the peak thrust, all systems were said to have been installed and run for extended periods of time, likely demonstrating flight-like burns. Regular and reliable stable startups and shutdowns of the engine were, of course, demonstrated as well.
LandSpace was reluctant to mention many more solid details, but they did share the following after praising their propulsion teams:
“[BF-20] completed full-system long-duration testing, marking China’s continued breakthroughs in high-thrust, high-performance liquid rocket engines. . . . [BF-20] has advanced rapidly, with its first full-system test conducted in May 2025. To date, it has completed over one hundred full-system ignition tests. . . . Through rapid iterative optimization, product maturity has been further enhanced, laying a solid foundation for subsequent development.”
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In a report about LandSpace’s recent testing of BF-20, China Central Television (中国中央电视台) released a few images of the engine during test firings. Between the heavy frost from the propellants, online sleuths were able to determine that BF-20 has reached a similar design to SpaceX’s ‘Raptor 2’ for its turbopumps (possibly helped by abundant third-party images).
Before today, the last known test of the BF-20 engine was back in September 2025, with the engine firing up for brief periods with thrust limited to 110 tons, or half power. Six months ago, the engine was stated to have completed thirty test firings, and since then has fired up seventy more times. A first firing of the engine occurred in May 2025.
Development of BF-20 is believed to have been underway since 2021 in one form or another. LandSpace’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Zhang Changwu (张昌武), is a big believer in full-flow staged-combustion engines, theorizing that they will proliferate worldwide and power many affordable reusable launch vehicles within a decade.
In the 2030s, the BF-20 engine is set to power a fully reusable 10-meter diameter launch vehicle currently nicknamed ‘Zhuque-4’. That vehicle is not in active development, but has been regularly studied by LandSpace for several years.