On November 9, Interstellar Glory Chairman Peng Xiaobo announced that the Hyperbola-3 rocket is scheduled to make its maiden flight in late 2026 or 2027. The company has completed more than 100 major tests this year, and the maiden flight goal remains achieving orbital insertion and sea recovery.

More than four months ago, the recovery ship "Star Homing" conducted a full-process sea recovery joint exercise with a first-stage mechanical mockup rocket in waters near Yangjiang, Guangdong. Under the plan announced in March 2025, Hyperbola-3 was originally scheduled to make its maiden flight in December of that year and conduct a reuse test in June 2026. Now, both milestones have been missed.

Peng Xiaobo described the difficulty of space launches as "ten thousand people aiming one rifle, and the one shot must hit the bullseye." Seven years after becoming the first Chinese private company to achieve orbital insertion, why has Interstellar Glory's shot still not been fired?

01 The Gap Facing the First Mover

In 2019, Interstellar Glory held two leading cards: technology and launches.

In July, the Focus-1 liquid oxygen methane engine completed a 200-second long-duration test firing, and then the Hyperbola-1 solid rocket successfully reached orbit. In October, Interstellar Glory announced the Hyperbola-2, a reusable liquid oxygen methane rocket designed with a maximum low Earth orbit capacity of 1.9 tons, planned for its first orbital launch in 2021. The Hyperbola-3 was also already in planning at that time, with a maiden flight expected in 2023.

In the early days of China's commercial space development, Interstellar Glory had already begun laying out reusable liquid rockets and planned to gradually expand its launch capacity.

Subsequent development, however, did not unfold as expected.

From 2021 to 2022, the Hyperbola-1 suffered three consecutive launch failures. At the same time, Interstellar Glory reassessed the R&D investment and commercialization prospects of liquid rockets. The Hyperbola-2 project, originally planned for three orbital launches, had already received more than 100 million yuan in investment. After internal discussions, Interstellar Glory decided to terminate this commercial model project and concentrate resources on the more capable Hyperbola-3.

As demand for large satellite constellation deployment grew, the more capable Hyperbola-3 clearly better matched future market needs. But upgrading the model also increased development difficulty. Abandoning the Hyperbola-2 orbital launch plan meant that Interstellar Glory gave up the path of accumulating liquid rocket orbital experience through a smaller model and staked its subsequent commercialization progress on the Hyperbola-3.

In November and December 2023, the Hyperbola-2 verification rocket SQX-2Y completed vertical takeoff and landing twice, with the same rocket body achieving reflight, earlier than Blue Arrow's Zhuque-3 vertical takeoff and landing test in 2024.

Yet by December 2025, Zhuque-3 completed its maiden orbital flight; in August 2026, Zhuque-3 Y2 also achieved first-stage land recovery. Interstellar Glory obtained low-altitude reflight data earlier, but has yet to complete the first orbital insertion of a liquid launch vehicle.

How many R&D resources were saved by shifting from Hyperbola-2 to Hyperbola-3, and how much time cost was paid? The gains and losses of this strategic choice are still difficult to measure precisely, but market competition has already delivered a real-world result.

The former first-mover advantage has yet to translate into deliverable medium-to-large liquid rocket launch capacity.

02 The Difficulty of Hitting the Bullseye with One Shot

The difficulty of Hyperbola-3's maiden flight lies in its plan to complete two high-risk tasks—orbital insertion and sea recovery—in a single launch.

Nine-engine clustering is no longer a novel technical solution, but achieving reliable operation on the very first orbital flight remains a formidable challenge.

The first stage of Hyperbola-3 uses nine Focus-2 liquid oxygen methane engines. Even if ground test firings go smoothly, interactions among engine thrust deviations, rocket body vibration, and aerodynamic loads may trigger system coupling problems during actual flight that are difficult to fully reproduce in ground tests.

Recovery also faces many unknowns.

In 2023, Interstellar Glory used the Hyperbola-2 verification rocket to complete vertical takeoff and landing twice, with the same rocket body achieving reflight, reaching a maximum flight altitude of 343.12 meters. This proved low-altitude landing control capability and verified the feasibility of flying the same rocket body again, but the flight conditions it could cover were quite limited.

In June 2024, a reusable rocket verification vehicle from the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation completed a vertical takeoff and landing of about 12 kilometers, achieving a precise soft landing. In September of the same year, Blue Arrow's Zhuque-3 completed a 10-kilometer-class test, verifying transonic flight, in-flight engine reignition, and soft landing. In May 2025, Arrowhead Technology's Yuanxingzhe-1 verification vehicle also completed a flight of about 2.5 kilometers, hovering above the sea surface before a controlled splashdown.

From hundreds of meters to more than ten kilometers, tests have gradually covered more complex aerodynamic environments and return conditions. But test altitude alone is not enough to measure full recovery capability. Even completing a 10-kilometer-class vertical takeoff and landing cannot fully simulate the high-speed flight loads endured by the first stage during an orbital launch, nor the deceleration process during return after stage separation.

Interstellar Glory also faces technical differences between the verification rocket and Hyperbola-3. The earlier SQX-2Y used a single Focus-1 engine and had a rocket body diameter of 3.35 meters; Hyperbola-3's diameter has increased to 4.2 meters, and its first stage uses nine more powerful Focus-2 engines. Both the scale and configuration of the propulsion system have changed.

More importantly, the 343.12-meter test did not cover key conditions required for actual first-stage orbital recovery, such as high-speed return, in-flight engine reignition, and sea landing.

Therefore, the maiden flight of Hyperbola-3 needs to simultaneously verify the orbital flight capability of nine-engine clustering and sea recovery capability. The more than 100 major tests completed earlier can reduce risk, but they still cannot replace real flight.

This is exactly the difficulty of "hitting the bullseye with one shot."

But must the first launch hit the bullseye?

Orbital insertion and recovery have different mission values. After first-stage separation, even if a fault occurs during the return phase, it does not mean the second-stage orbital insertion mission will necessarily fail.

For Interstellar Glory, achieving a first successful orbital insertion is itself an important technical achievement. Obtaining an actual orbital flight record and then using return-phase data to improve recovery technology also has clear R&D value.

"Hitting the bullseye with one shot" can be a goal, but it is not necessary to treat a perfect recovery as a prerequisite for a successful first orbital insertion.

03 The Cost of the Ship Waiting for the Rocket

On August 5, 2025, the "Star Homing" was launched in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. This recovery ship built for Hyperbola-3 is 100 meters long and 42 meters wide, with a designed displacement of about 18,000 tons, and is equipped with a DP2 dynamic positioning system, enabling it to provide a landing platform at sea for returning rockets.

In June 2026, the recovery ship completed a drone-mounted flight test of its high-precision navigation system, and then carried a first-stage mechanical mockup rocket to conduct a full-process joint exercise in waters near Yangjiang, Guangdong, testing equipment coordination and emergency response capabilities under different sea conditions.

From ship construction to rocket-ship coordination, Interstellar Glory has already invested a great deal of preparatory work. More than a year after the recovery ship was launched, the actual recovery mission has still not arrived.

The long wait is also increasing the time and financial costs of the recovery system.

Although Interstellar Glory has not disclosed the specific construction cost and operating expenses of the "Star Homing," similar projects can provide a reference. In 2025, a general contracting project for the design, procurement, and construction of a sea recovery ship by Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co., Ltd. was ultimately awarded for about 290 million yuan. Although the configurations and construction requirements of the two ships differ, this amount is enough to reflect the investment scale of a dedicated rocket recovery ship.

After the ship is built, routine maintenance, equipment upkeep, and personnel training all generate costs. When carrying out recovery missions, ship deployment, dynamic positioning, and sea support are also required. Whether these investments can ultimately be effectively shared depends on launch frequency and the utilization efficiency of the recovery system.

Peng Xiaobo once estimated that after eight reuses of the first stage, the cost of the entire rocket could be reduced to about one-third of that of a single-use version. This expectation requires a stable recovery success rate and controllable inspection and operating costs. If launch frequency is insufficient and recovery facility utilization is low, even if the rocket body is successfully recovered, overall economics may fall short of expectations.

Building the recovery ship in advance is necessary. Sea recovery requires coordinated work among the ship, rocket body, and ground systems, and completing facility construction early can buy time for subsequent flight tests.

The problem is that as the rocket development schedule continues to slip, the originally planned investment pace has also changed. The recovery ship has already been launched, equipment and personnel require continuous maintenance, and the actual recovery verification originally planned has yet to begin.

The cost of the ship waiting for the rocket includes both continued investment in money and manpower and the time lost while the entire recovery system remains unable to have its economics tested through real missions.

04 The Maiden Flight and the Capital Clock

Hyperbola-3's development schedule has been continuously adjusted, while Interstellar Glory's listing plan has a clear timetable.

In February 2026, Interstellar Glory completed a 5.037 billion yuan D++ round of financing. In April, media reports already said it planned to list on the STAR Market in the second half of 2027. In August, Interstellar Glory completed the first tranche of nearly 1 billion yuan in its E round.

The two financing rounds provide funding support for subsequent R&D and commercialization, but the capital market's requirements for commercial rocket companies go far beyond funding scale.

According to the Shanghai Stock Exchange's review guidelines for commercial rocket companies applying under the fifth set of STAR Market listing standards, at the time of application, a company should have at least achieved the phased results of conducting a launch and successfully achieving first orbital insertion with a medium-to-large launch vehicle using reusable technology, and should also meet other conditions.

First successful orbital insertion is one of the necessary conditions for applying this listing standard, while successful first-stage recovery is not among these phased requirements.

This also gives the mission arrangement of Hyperbola-3's maiden flight more direct commercial significance.

Interstellar Glory's plan to attempt both orbital insertion and sea recovery at the same time has its technical considerations. But the risks and results of the two tasks should also be evaluated separately. Previously, when Zhuque-3 successfully reached orbit for the first time, first-stage recovery was not successful, and recovery was only completed after improvements. The failure of the first recovery did not erase the orbital achievement already obtained.

For Interstellar Glory, the more urgent problem is time.

According to the plan announced in March 2025, Hyperbola-3 was originally scheduled to make its maiden flight in December of that year and conduct reuse tests in mid-2026. Now, the latest maiden flight window has been extended to late 2026 or even 2027, putting greater uncertainty on the previously proposed listing plan for the second half of 2027.

If the first orbital insertion is not completed until 2027, Interstellar Glory will need to advance subsequent technical verification and listing preparation in a shorter period. Although successful orbital insertion is an important threshold, it does not mean all listing conditions will then be met.

A considerable portion of the time originally planned for the maiden flight, reuse tests, and commercialization has already been consumed by consecutive delays. The more concentrated subsequent tasks become, the more matters will need to be coordinated between R&D progress and capital plans.

Space launches must complete sufficient safety verification, and no commercial goal can come at the expense of reliability. But for Interstellar Glory, which has already invested years of R&D resources, built sea recovery facilities, and proposed a clear listing plan, maiden flight progress is directly related to when R&D results can be converted into actual launch capacity and whether subsequent commercial plans can advance as expected.

Seven years ago, Interstellar Glory was the first to achieve orbital insertion for a Chinese private rocket. Since then, competition in China's commercial space sector has advanced from being first to orbit with small rockets to continuous delivery and reuse of medium-to-large liquid rockets. Early technological achievements remain valuable, but market competition will not proceed according to any one company's original timetable.

"Hitting the bullseye with one shot" is a goal worth pursuing. But for Interstellar Glory, as peers successively obtain orbital and recovery flight records, waiting also means losing market opportunities.

True glory requires first getting Hyperbola-3 to fly.

References used in writing this article:

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9. “Exclusive: Interstellar Glory in the Midst of 7 Billion Yuan E-Round Financing,” IPO Early Bird, April 10, 2026.

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