A Chinese rocket carrying a communications satellite failed in its launch, state media said, attributing the failure to a “flight anomaly” as reports and videos suggested the spacecraft had exploded in mid-air.Beijing has plowed billions of dollars into its space program in the past few years to achieve what Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) calls the country’s “space dream.”Monday’s rare launch failure involved a Long March 7A carrier rocket, which lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China’s southernmost province of Hainan at 8:02pm, state news agency Xinhua said.
China’s Long March 7A rocket yesterday appears to break apart after it exploded during lift-off from the Wenchang space launch site in Hainan, China.
An “anomaly” occurred when the rocket, which was carrying the Zhongxing-4B communications satellite, was in flight, Xinhua added.The cause of the failure is under investigation, it said.
Singapore-based broadcaster Channel NewsAsia said in an Instagram post that the rocket had exploded and posted footage from the scene of awestruck crowds watching a fiery ball in the sky.One video, posted a few hours after the launch by a social media profile in Hainan, showed a rocket exploding into flames about 85 seconds after it blasted off, leaving behind a cloud of gray smoke as debris fell to the ground.China successfully landed a reusable rocket for the first time last month, its space agency said, marking a major step in its space ambitions and in reducing launch costs.The country is aiming to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, a race in which the US is also competing with its Artemis program.SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, commenting on a post about Monday’s failed launch on X, said that “rockets are insanely hard.”“I hope they have a speedy recovery,” he added.A 4-tonne piece of a SpaceX rocket was believed to have unintentionally crashed into the Moon on Wednesday last week, a collision expected to leave behind a lunar crater.China’s maiden launch of the Long March 7A from the Wenchang site in 2020 was also unsuccessful after “a malfunction occurred,” Xinhua reported in March that year.
