Space Pioneer's Tianlong-3 'Ready to Launch', Media Reports
Hardware for the launch vehicle's second mission is far along in production as well.
Since November 2025, Space Pioneer’s partially reusable two-stage Tianlong-31 launch vehicle has undergone pre-launch preparations at the company’s facilities within the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center ahead of its first flight. Those preparations have gone without comment from Space Pioneer over the past two months.
In the first progress update since the vehicle’s arrival at Jiuquan, Shanghai Securities News (上海证券报) is reporting that Tianlong-3 is ready to perform its debut mission, with pre-launch testing said to be completed, citing a recent visit to Space Pioneer’s Zhangjiagang (张家港市) manufacturing facility, in Jiangsu (江苏) province. Almost two weeks before the report, the vehicle was spotted on its launch pad.
No launch dates were mentioned by the outlet and comments from Space Pioneer’s team within the report did not state any goals for the first launch. Mention was, however, made of a thirty-six satellite deployment test.
From November 2025 images of Tianlong-3 at Jiuquan, it can be determined that at least the first vehicle will be expended. Those images show that no landing legs or grid fins for recovering the first-stage are installed. Mounting points for that hardware appear to be missing too.
In preparation for Tianlong-3’s first flight, Space Pioneer conducted a successful thirty-five-second static fire in September 2025 to verify that the first-stage’s rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen burning TH-12 engines can work in coordination with each other to generate 840 tons of thrust. That firing was a required repeat of a failed not-so-static fire with various fixes incorporated.
While Shanghai Securities News visited Space Pioneer’s Zhangjiagang facility, a second Tianlong-3 launch vehicle, currently being assembled, was shown to its reporter. That vehicle was reported to be undergoing intensive final assembly, with various quality control systems surrounding it to detect possible anomalies.
Like the vehicle at Jiuquan, few details were mentioned for the second Tianlong-3, or when it will head to Jiuquan. In early 2025, Space Pioneer was planning an aggressive launch schedule with six flights in seven months, but none actually occurred.
As the outlet was shown the second Tialong-3 vehicle, Lu Wei (吕伟), General Manager of Space Pioneer’s Zhangjiagang manufacturing facility, detailed the following on the company’s production process:
“Assembling a single rocket takes approximately two months, and this facility can handle the final assembly of up to nine rockets simultaneously. We always adhere to the space industry’s principle of learning from one case to apply it to others and implementing zero-tolerance quality control. Once a problem is found with a component, we conduct a thorough inspection from start to finish.”
If there are any problems with this translation please reach out and correct me.
In an indirect quote, Lu Wei was reported to have disclosed that the Zhangjiagang facility can produce up to fifty Tianlong-3 launch vehicles per year, planned to be in support of the deployment of China’s handful of mega-constellation efforts. All of those vehicles are desired to be launched within a calendar year, if customer demand is available, supported by two planned Jiuquan launch pads.
Standing 72 meters tall when prepared to launch, being 3.8 meters in diameter with a 4.2-meter-wide fairing. Fully fuelled, the vehicle weighs 590,000 kilograms. Regarding payload capacity, Tianlong-3 can deliver up to 17,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit.