A Chinese rocket went up in flames less than two minutes after launch, triggering a huge explosion in the skies above the island of Hainan. China’s Long March 7A rocket launched on Monday from the Wenchang Space Launch Site. Around 85 seconds after liftoff, the rocket erupted in a massive fireball that left a thick trail of smoke and debris across the sky. Waking up to see the loss of a Long March 7A. Really unexpected. pic.twitter.com/XnU8WveWYS — CNSPACE (@CNSpaceflight) August 10, 2026 The incident was captured on video and shared online. Chinese state media later confirmed that the rocket experienced an unidentified anomaly during flight and that an investigation into the failure was underway, the Associated Press reported. Unusual failure Monday’s explosion marked the Long March 7A’s first reported failure since the rocket’s debut more than six years ago. On March 16, 2020, China’s medium-lift vehicle experienced an engine malfunction shortly after stage separation and its inaugural flight ended in failure.
A year later, Long March 7A sent a classified, experimental payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit for its first successful mission. Since then, the rocket has completed more than a dozen missions without a hitch. The recent failure ended that long-running lucky streak.
