Reusable Rockets Companies

Astronstone, also known as Yushi Space Aerospace Technology, is a Chinese launch startup developing AS-1, a fully reusable methane and liquid oxygen rocket. The vehicle is 70 metres tall and 4.2 metres in diameter, powered by a customised version of the 80-tonne-thrust Longyun engine from commercial engine maker Jiuzhou Yunjian, and is designed to lift about 15,700 kilograms to low Earth orbit expendably or 10,000 kilograms when the booster is recovered. The company was founded in mid-2024 and has adopted a stainless steel airframe and a tower-based catch recovery scheme for the first stage, closely modelled on SpaceX's Starship and its chopstick arms. Recovering the booster on the launch tower rather than on legs removes landing hardware mass from the vehicle, at the cost of demanding far tighter guidance accuracy on return. Astronstone completed a second stage static fire campaign in December 2025 and claims the first full-scale 100-tonne-class catch arm ground test in China. It has raised $29 million, following an earlier round of about $13.9 million, and targets a debut flight between late 2026 and early 2027.

Honda Space refers to the reusable-rocket and space research programme run by Honda R&D Co., Ltd., the research and development subsidiary of Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co., Ltd., rather than to Honda's automotive or motorcycle businesses. Honda disclosed that it had begun developing rocket engines in 2019 as part of a broader effort to apply its internal-combustion, combustion-control, guidance and materials expertise to space applications, stating ambitions to use small launch vehicles to deploy its own satellites in support of other Honda businesses, such as connected-vehicle data services, and eventually to offer suborbital flight services. On 17 June 2025, Honda conducted a launch-and-landing test of an experimental reusable rocket prototype — just over 6 metres tall and roughly 1,300 kg in mass — at its test facility in Taiki, Hokkaido, reaching an altitude of nearly 300 metres before landing under rocket propulsion within about 15 inches (37 cm) of its target, a vertical-takeoff-vertical-landing (VTVL) test broadly analogous to early SpaceX Grasshopper/Falcon 9 hop tests. Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the test was 'another step forward in our research on reusable rockets' and described rocket research as 'a meaningful endeavor that leverages Honda's technological strengths.' Honda has stated a goal of conducting a suborbital launch by 2029, though as of the test the programme remained an internal R&D effort with no announced dedicated commercial launch vehicle, customer contracts or corporate spin-off. The rocket programme continues as an active research effort within Honda R&D.

Space Epoch (Shanghai Yuanxinghang Technology, 上海元行航) is a Chinese reusable launch vehicle startup founded in 2023 and headquartered in Beijing with test facilities in Shandong. The company is developing the Yuanxingzhe-1 (YXZ-1) medium-lift two-stage launch vehicle designed around a reusable first stage, using liquid oxygen / methane propellants and a stainless-steel structure — design choices visibly influenced by SpaceX's Starship architecture. In May 2024, Space Epoch successfully conducted a 10-kilometer altitude vertical takeoff / vertical landing hop test of a subscale stainless-steel stage in the Yellow Sea, making it one of the first Chinese private companies to publicly demonstrate high-altitude reusable-rocket flight and recovery. The company targets orbital reuse later in the decade. Space Epoch is part of a growing cohort of Chinese commercial launch startups pursuing reusability, including Landspace (Zhuque-3), Orienspace, Deep Blue Aerospace, Galactic Energy, and iSpace. Funding has come from a mix of Chinese industrial-technology funds and state-linked investors.