China's Landspace: BF20 Engine Tests for Reusable Heavy Lift Commercial Rockets
🔥These high-thrust, long-duration engine tests by China commercial launch services provider Landspace lay the foundation for building a high-efficiency, reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle system. The full-flow staged combustion cycle (FFSC) BF20 220-ton-class methalox engine completed its first full-system test firing in May 2025. Since then it has undergone over 100 full-system ignition tests. This marks another milestone on their way to catch up with SpaceX's capabilities.
At the beginning of the Year of the Horse, LandSpace has fully resumed its R&D, production, and testing activities. Recently, the company successfully completed long-duration full-system hot-fire tests of its independently developed blue flame (BF) 20 LOX–methane FFSC engine demonstrating continued progress in the development of high-thrust, high-performance liquid rocket engines.
The BF engine is designed using the advanced FFSC cycle, combined with a highly integrated architecture and high chamber pressure design. It features two preburners: a fuel-rich preburner driving the fuel pump and an oxygen-rich preburner driving the oxidizer pump. The two gas streams are then routed into the main combustion chamber, where they burn completely to ensure optimal performance.
Compared with conventional engine cycles, the FFSC cycle offers higher propellant utilization efficiency, greater thrust-to-weight ratio, and longer service life. However, it also introduces significant engineering challenges, including high system coupling, structural complexity, multiple vibration sources, elevated internal pressures, and intense thermal loads.
Development of the BF engine has progressed rapidly. Since its first full-system hot-fire test in May 2025, it has accomplished more than 100 full-system ignition tests. The successful completion of this latest long-duration test demonstrates steady progress in key technology development and confirms LandSpace’s capability to carry out the complete development cycle of FFSC engines, supported by an agile testing and iteration approach.
These advances further improve the engine’s technical maturity and lay a solid foundation for future development. The BF engine will serve as a critical propulsion building block for the next generation of large to heavy-lift launch vehicles, supporting the development of high-efficiency and reusable heavy-lift propulsion systems.
Beijing-based LandSpace is a leading Chinese private space company. With its Zhuque-2 rocket, LandSpace became the world's first company to launch a methane-liquid oxygen rocket to Earth orbit in July 2023, ahead of U.S. rivals, including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.
Credit: Landspace
Time: 29 seconds
Date: March 6, 2025
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