Space Pioneer, one of China’s most promising space startups, experienced a serious anomaly while testing the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket near the city of Gongyi last weekend.
The rocket was undergoing a static firing test, the stage in which the rocket is secured to a test stand with its engines ignited, when the booster came loose. The rocket was not properly secured and flew off the stand due to a “structural defect,” according to a company statement.
Video of the accidental ascent shows the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before exploding into a mountain 1.5 kilometers from the test site. (Video of the accident from various angles can be seen here, on social media site X, or on Weibo.) A statement from Space Pioneer sought to downplay the incident, saying it had implemented safety measures before the test and that no fatalities or injuries had been reported in the accident. “The test site is far from downtown Gongyi,” the company said.
That’s not entirely true. Gongyi city, located on the Yellow River in eastern China’s Henan province, has a population of about 800,000. The testing site is just three miles from the city center and less than one kilometer away from a small village.
Such accidents are rare in the launch industry, but not unprecedented. Typically, during static-fire tests, the rocket is held in place by a combination of large amounts of propellant carried by the rocket and strong clamps. But in 1952, a U.S. Viking rocket broke free from its moorings at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The rocket crashed six kilometers downstream from the launch site, but no casualties occurred.
How big a setback is that?
It’s unclear how much of a setback this represents for Space Pioneer, a quasi-private company founded in 2019. A little over a year ago, Space Pioneer became the first Chinese company to reach orbit with a liquid-fueled rocket, after the company achieved impressive results on its first attempt with its small rocket, Tianlong-2. It was a remarkable achievement, but the rocket’s engine was provided not by a private company but by China’s state-owned Academy of Aerospace Liquid Propulsion Technology.
Space Pioneer says it is building its own kerosene-fueled engines, called TH-12s, for the larger Cheonlong-3 rocket (which appeared to perform as expected this weekend). Nine of these engines will power the Cheonlong-3 rocket, which is scheduled to launch into low Earth orbit with a thrust of 17 tonnes. The rocket’s design and plans for reusing its first stage mimic the Falcon 9 rocket developed by America’s SpaceX.
Space Pioneer had been preparing the rocket for its first launch this summer or fall. The first stage static firing test marks the rocket’s final testing phase before launch. The company’s statement did not set a new timeline for the launch attempt but said it would complete a failure analysis “as soon as possible.”
China has the world’s most active commercial space industry after the U.S. About a decade ago, the country’s leaders pledged to share state-owned technology with privately funded companies in an attempt to emulate the commercial success of SpaceX and other U.S. companies.
There are now dozens of Chinese companies developing rockets, satellites and other spaceflight-related products. Space Pioneer is one of the most promising, having raised more than $400 million since its founding five years ago.
This story originally Ars Technica.
