Historic Zhuque-3 Reusable Rocket Test Mission Captured with URSA Cine Immersive
Apple Immersive Video puts viewers at launch site to experience true scale of China’s next generation rocket.
On the Gobi Desert at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, private Chinese space company LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket lifted off into space, marking a major milestone in China’s commercial spaceflight efforts. Tang Yisu, Gan Yujie, and Lu Linxuan, cofounders of Chengdu Qiongjie Yingchuang, captured the historic moment in Apple Immersive Video using Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive digital film camera.
The full immersive video is now streaming on Migu Video, Voola, Immersive China, and DEOVR, all accessible on Apple Vision Pro. Pico headset users can catch it on Pico TV and DEOVR as well.
Q: Can you introduce your team and the project, and explain why you chose immersive video for this launch?
Tang Yisu, cinematographer: We’re a Chengdu based creative and technical team working under Chengdu Qiongjie Yingchuang Culture and Entertainment. We focus on next generation immersive imaging, particularly Apple Immersive Video, produced using the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive. Our projects range from immersive music videos and documentaries to commercial and large scale experiential content, supported by our own in house software for immersive production, monitoring, and playback.
This project is titled “Land Your Dream in Space: Zhuque-3 Launch Vehicle Flight Test Mission,” and it may be the first Apple Immersive Video centered on a space launch vehicle.
In late November and early December 2025, we filmed the Zhuque-3 flight test mission at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu using the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive. We completed post production in DaVinci Resolve Studio and packaged the project as a native .aivu file for Apple Vision Pro, enabling direct playback on the device.
We chose to document this mission using immersive video because traditional video cannot truly bring viewers back to the launch site to witness the spectacle firsthand, whether they are members of the general public eager to see a rocket launch, or engineers working behind the scenes at LandSpace.
Apple Immersive Video, which features ultra high resolution 3D video and a 180 degree field of view, is the only format that can truly place viewers inside the scene. It not only allows audiences to be “present” at the site, but also offers a launch perspective that no one has ever experienced in person before.
We were fortunate to collaborate with Baomao, who has extensive experience filming rocket launches, and with the strong support of LandSpace, we were able to carry out this shoot successfully. After completing the film, we also had the opportunity to screen it for the Zhuque-3 engineers at the Huzhou test facility, 2,600 kilometers away from Jiuquan. As they watched the engines they had personally tested lift Zhuque-3 into the sky, they couldn’t help but exclaim, “Wow!” One engineer laughed excitedly and said, “That’s the engine I tested back in February!” For them, this was the greatest recognition imaginable.
We are currently distributing the film across multiple platforms and channels. Through this immersive video, we hope to share, without reservation, the breathtaking moment of Zhuque-3’s launch, as well as the rapid development of China’s private aerospace industry, with everyone who could not be there in person.
Q: When preparing for the project, why did the team ultimately choose URSA Cine Immersive as the core camera? Compared to other cameras, what was its most compelling advantage?
Lu Linxuan, editor: The resolution and high frame rate of URSA Cine Immersive make it the top choice for immersive video creation. We believe it is the only imaging device capable of truly breaking the boundary between the digital and the physical world.
For an event as significant as the launch of China’s first reusable rocket, only URSA Cine Immersive could record and reproduce the launch site with complete fidelity. Compared with other devices, stability was absolutely critical for us. Other cameras, often suffer from focus inaccuracies and require extensive image correction in post, adding significant complexity to the workflow.
URSA Cine Immersive, together with DaVinci Resolve Studio, delivers a fully integrated workflow from capture to post production. The footage can be dropped directly into DaVinci Resolve Studio for editing and export with no additional processing, allowing the team to focus entirely on shooting rather than technical fixes.
Q: What are the key differences between shooting immersive video and traditional video during production?
Lu: For us, immersive video is more like theater. Instead of merely watching, the audience is brought directly onto the stage. The director no longer dictates where viewers look primarily through camera language but instead guides their attention in much subtler ways.
Immersive camera language must be more restrained. Most shots are captured statically on tripods. Common movements in standard 2D cinematography, such as pushes, pulls, pans, and tilts, are not always suitable for immersive shooting. Any camera movement must be designed and executed with great care and repeatedly reviewed in post production to ensure viewer comfort is not compromised.
Q: What unique characteristics does URSA Cine Immersive bring to scenes like rocket launches?
Tang: We believe the unparalleled resolution of URSA Cine Immersive allows viewers to truly stand on the Gobi Desert, right beside the launch pad, and look up at the towering height of the rocket. This sense of monumental scale simply cannot be conveyed through flat video.
To capture the unique texture of the Gobi, we deliberately used ultra low camera angles on site, placing the URSA Cine Immersive directly against the ground. The results exceeded our expectations: the texture of sand and stones in the foreground is rendered with extraordinary detail, while the distant launch tower appears even more upright and crisp under the cool morning light of Jiuquan, creating a powerful sense of depth.
In addition, URSA Cine Immersive’s ability to reproduce scale at a true 1:1 ratio is crucial. Rockets are enormous, and traditional flat video cannot convey their real world size. With URSA Cine Immersive, true scale is preserved. When the rocket stands before you, or when you are positioned inside the flame trench, every viewer instinctively looks upward. For many, this may be the first time in their lives they truly experience the real scale of rockets and aerospace engineering.
Q: During filming, which features or performance aspects of URSA Cine Immersive left the strongest impression on you? Could you share specific examples?
Gan Yujie, cinematographer: For us, URSA Cine Immersive is not just a camera. It’s a highly efficient and reliable creative system. Its intuitive menu design, built in electronically controllable ND filters, and stable active cooling system greatly reduce setup time, allowing us to focus more on content rather than operation.
The weather in the Gobi can change rapidly, and light conditions are fleeting. The ease of use of URSA Cine Immersive enabled us to capture a breathtaking moment when the rocket intersected with Jiuquan’s fiery clouds. Combined with its 16K ultra high resolution and 90 fps high frame rate, viewers truly feel as though they are present at the scene, experiencing the same awe we felt during filming. The camera’s convenient timelapse feature also helped showcase the rocket’s majestic presence across the vast desert landscape.
Q: Could you briefly describe the environmental conditions on set, and how URSA Cine Immersive performed under those conditions?
Gan: Jiuquan, Gansu experiences extreme day to night temperature differences and frequent sandstorms. Under such harsh conditions, URSA Cine Immersive performed with remarkable stability. When we arrived, temperatures had already dropped to –12°C, with nighttime temperatures falling even lower. Strong winds and sand were constant, and a sandstorm had occurred just the day before our arrival.
To record timelapse footage, we placed the URSA Cine Immersive close to the sand for more than 40 minutes, with only minimal shielding from our vehicle. Despite strong winds blasting sand and gravel against the camera body, the system operated flawlessly throughout, capturing the spectacular sight of the rocket tower standing tall in the desert. Neither extreme cold nor persistent sandstorms had any impact on recording quality. URSA Cine Immersive’s exceptional environmental resilience and stability provided rock solid assurance for our outdoor shoots and earned our complete trust.
Q: What was your biggest impression when handling URSA Cine Immersive footage in post production?
Gan: The 16K ultra hi res footage from URSA Cine Immersive does place higher demands on post production hardware. Even with a high performance system like a Mac Studio M3 Ultra, playback can slow down when adding subtitles, layering 2D graphics, or performing detailed color grading. For more complex subtitle effects, we exported specific sections as AIVU files to review them properly on Apple Vision Pro, then returned to DaVinci Resolve Studio to refine and reexport the results as needed until everything looked right.
We also experimented with first order Ambisonics microphones to capture spatial ambience. As we are still exploring optimal ASAF configuration workflows, we ultimately exported in stereo, but will continue refining our approach to spatial audio for immersive video.
Ultra high resolution also means very large file sizes. An 8TB Media Module supports only about 90 minutes of recording, so storage planning is critical. However, these challenges are inevitable when pursuing ultimate image quality, and they are absolutely worthwhile given the final visual result.
What pleasantly surprised us was how well DaVinci Resolve Studio supports this camera’s footage. It automatically matches the immersive editing workflow and can convert traditional flat graphics into spherical effects with a single click, significantly simplifying post production and saving us a great deal of effort.
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