Chinese Rocket Crashes After Unintended Launch During Ground Test

TMTPOST--A Chinese rocket crashed after being accidentally launched during a ground test on Sunday, privately-held company Space Pioneer said in a statement.

The crash occurred when the first stage of the Tianlong-3 rocket separated from its launch pad during a test due to a structural failure. It landed in a hilly region of Gongyi in populous central China.

"The structural failure of the connection between the rocket body and the test platform caused the first-stage rocket to detach from the launch pad," said Space Pioneer, also known as Beijing Tianbing Technology.

Upon the liftoff, the onboard computer automatically shut down, and the rocket fell into the mountainous area 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) southwest of the test platform, disintegrating on impact.

Amateur footage captured by Gongyi residents and posted on Chinese social media shows the nine-engine test stage igniting and then, exceptionally, taking off. Hold-down clamps and other structures are typically used to securely keep stages in place.

The stage is seen climbing into the sky before halting, apparently with its engines shutting off, and returning to Earth. The stage impacted the ground around 50 seconds after it took off, apparently with much of its kerosene-liquid oxygen propellant remaining, causing a large explosion.

The company confirmed there were no injuries, as the area had been evacuated prior to the test.

Space Pioneer, a prominent player in the commercial rocket industry founded in 2019, focuses on liquid-propellant rockets. In April 2023, it successfully launched the Tianlong-2 rocket, becoming China’s first commercial operator to send a liquid carrier rocket into space and achieve orbit, as per state media.

The Tianlong-3 rocket, which crashed on Sunday, is a large liquid carrier rocket designed to aid in constructing China’s satellite internet network. According to Space Pioneer, its performance is comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, with plans for over 30 launches per year following its first successful flight.

Static-fire testing is part of rocket development or pre-launch testing. Issues are not uncommon during development. A SpaceX Starship prototype exploded following a static-fire test in 2020. However, an event in which the stage escapes its hold-downs and launches appears unique.

The orbital launch attempt was expected to take place at new commercial launch facilities near Wenchang spaceport on Hainan island. That launch attempt could now face a lengthy delay.

The accident comes just days after China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth from space, where it collected the first ever samples from the far side of the moon.

Space Pioneer announced the completion of a C+ round of financing exceeding 1.5 billion yuan (US$ 2.1 billion) early this June.

Over the past five years, Space Pioneer has completed 15 rounds of financing, securing over four billion yuan in total. Investors include institutions such as China International Capital Corporation, CITIC Securities Investment, Guoke Investment, Haitong Creative Capital, Innoangel Fund, TusHoldings, and Jundu Investment.

It is uncertain how the event will affect Space Pioneer in terms of delays, penalties and its future operations. The company said it will conduct an analysis and restart testing with new hardware as soon as possible.

The incident could also have wider impacts on China’s commercial space ecosystem. The sector has received increasingly strong backing from various levels of governments.

An anonymous investor cited by the SciTech Innovation Board Daily suggested that the incident might impact the domestic private aerospace sector, potentially leading to stricter approvals and a requirement to relocate rocket test sites away from densely populated areas to prevent such accidents.

Rocket test explosions are often inevitable. As mentioned in "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," SpaceX founder Musk believes in the "fail fast" approach when building rockets, advocating for taking risks, learning from failures, and improving designs. "We don’t want to eliminate every risk. Otherwise we will never get anywhere," Musk said.