CASC Engineer Zhang Jianheng Commands Long March 10B Maiden Flight
thevirtualtribune.com · post 69672 · 2026-07-10
BEIJING, July 10 — For a senior engineer whose fingerprints are on China’s most ambitious rockets, the arc of Zhang Jianheng’s career tracks Beijing’s own push to dominate the next phase of spaceflight. Zhang is a senior engineer at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and served as the launch commander for the Long March 10B’s maiden flight on June 23, 2024 — a mission that marked a step toward the country’s crewed lunar ambitions.
The Long March 10B is a heavy-lift vehicle designed to support China’s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon before 2030. Zhang’s role as launch commander on that debut flight placed him at the sharp end of a program that has drawn increasing attention from global competitors, including the United States and India, both of which are racing to expand their presence in cislunar space.
Zhang’s career spans more than two decades on the Long March rocket family. He contributed to the development of the Long March 5, 7, and 8, according to CASC. The Long March 5 is China’s largest current launch vehicle and has been used for heavy payloads including the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station.
The Long March 7 serves as the workhorse for cargo resupply, while the Long March 8 is a medium-lift rocket with a reusable first stage — an area where Zhang has deep expertise.
Guidance, control, and reusability
Zhang earned a degree in aerospace engineering from Beihang University in 1998 and joined CASC soon after. His technical focus has been rocket guidance and control systems — the onboard intelligence that steers a booster through ascent, separation, and, in the case of reusable vehicles, a powered vertical landing. In 2020, Zhang served as deputy chief designer for the Long March 8R reusable test.
That vehicle is a recoverable version of the Long March 8, designed to fly back to a landing pad after delivering its payload — a concept similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster landings, which have reshaped the global launch market. China has been slower to operationalize reusability, but Zhang’s work on the 8R test signals that Beijing is closing the gap.
Analysts note that reusable launch technology is critical for cost reduction in an increasingly crowded commercial launch sector. India, through the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is developing its own reusable launch vehicle, the RLV-TD, which has undergone landing tests. For Asian space programs, Zhang’s progress in vertical landing technology offers a benchmark — and a competitor.
Zhang has published more than 30 papers on rocket reusability and vertical landing technology, according to his CASC biography. That body of work has made him a recognized figure in the small global community of engineers working on propulsive landing, a field where few nations have demonstrated operational success.
National recognition
In 2023, Zhang received the National Science and Technology Progress Award for his work on reusable launch vehicles. The award is one of China’s highest scientific honors and is typically bestowed by the State Council. It places Zhang among a select group of engineers driving China’s space modernization.
Born in 1975 in Beijing, Zhang is married with two children and resides in the capital. His career arc — from Beihang University graduate to launch commander on a lunar-class rocket — reflects the institutional depth China has built in aerospace engineering over the past three decades.
For India, the implications are direct. ISRO’s Gaganyaan program aims to send Indian astronauts to low Earth orbit by the mid-2020s, and New Delhi has signaled interest in a crewed lunar mission later. China’s Long March 10B, under commanders like Zhang, is already flying.
The technology gap in heavy-lift and reusable rockets remains a strategic concern for Indian planners, who have watched Beijing accelerate its testing cadence. The Long March 10B maiden flight in June 2024 was conducted from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island.
CASC described the mission as successful. Zhang’s leadership on that flight, combined with his earlier work on the Long March 8R, positions him as a key figure in China’s transition from expendable rockets to reusable systems — a transition that will determine launch costs for the next decade. What to watch next: China’s pace of reusable rocket testing.
With Zhang’s guidance-and-control expertise now validated on the Long March 10B, CASC may accelerate flight trials for the Long March 8R and other recoverable vehicles. For Asian competitors and Western observers alike, the question is not whether China will field operational reusable boosters, but how quickly — and at what cost to the global launch market.