HAUSJARVI, Finland — A staged test launch of a rocket by private Chinese company Space Pioneer ended in a catastrophic failure and dramatic explosion on Sunday.
Space Pioneer conducted a static ignition test of the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket at its testing facility in Gongyi County, Henan Province on Sunday, June 30.
Amateur footage taken by a Gongyi citizen and posted to Chinese social media shows the nine-engine test stage igniting and then, in an unusual move, taking off, using fixed clamps or other structures normally used to hold the stage in place.
The stage rose into the sky, stopped, and its engines appear to have shut down before it returned to Earth. The stage struck the ground about 50 seconds after takeoff, apparently still carrying a significant amount of the kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel mixture, causing a large explosion. Tenryu-3’s first stage is expected to burn for several minutes during orbital flight.
Space Pioneer has been conducting tests in preparation for the orbital launch of its Tianlong-3 rocket, which will benchmark SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in the coming months. The company announced earlier this month that it had secured $207 million in new funding.
The Paper, a Shanghai-based digital newspaper, quoted a Henan provincial official as saying there had been no reports of casualties.
Space Pioneer later issued its own statement saying there was a structural failure in the connection between the rocket body and the test platform. The rocket’s onboard computer automatically shut down the engines, and the rocket fell 1.5 kilometers (1.5 kilometers) to the southwest. The company reiterated earlier reports that there were no casualties. The company said the test produced 820 tons of thrust.
Static launch tests are part of rocket development or pre-launch testing. It is not uncommon for problems to occur during development. In 2020, SpaceX’s Starship prototype exploded after a static launch test. However, the occurrence of a stage escaping anchorage and launching appears to be rare.
The orbital launch attempt was scheduled to take place at a new commercial launch facility near Wenchang Spaceport on Hainan island. This launch attempt may now face a lengthy delay.
The incident came on the heels of China’s hugely successful mission to bring back the first ever samples from the far side of the moon with its Chang’e-6 probe, and a separate incident in which the first stage of a hypergolic rocket fell into a populated area.
It is unclear how this incident will affect Space Pioneer in terms of delays, fines, and business continuity. Space Pioneer has said it will conduct an analysis and resume testing with new hardware as soon as possible.
The incident could also have broader implications for China’s commercial space ecosystem, a sector that is receiving increasingly strong support from the central, provincial and municipal governments.
Delays to the Tianlong-3, which is expected to be reusable, could also affect China’s plans for a large constellation of satellites, which it needs to strengthen its access to space and overall launch capacity to build.
In 2019, China issued policy guidelines and regulations for the development of domestic commercial launch vehicles.
Space Pioneer is notable for becoming China’s first commercial launch company to reach orbit with its Tianlong 2 rocket in 2023.
The Tianlong-3 is much larger than the Tianlong-2, with a diameter of 3.8 meters and a takeoff weight of 590 tonnes. It can launch 17 tonnes of payload into low earth orbit (LEO) and 14 tonnes into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km.
