Another rocket crash occurred near the launch site in China.
According to the Chinese economic media Securities Times (STCN), on June 30, a rocket crash caused a fire in Gongyi City, Henan Province, captured on camera by residents living near the launch site.
The accident happened during a test run of the commercial liquid-propellant rocket Tianlong-3 (TL-3), developed by the Beijing-based Space Pioneer, a private rocket development company.
The Tianlong-3 is a large liquid fuel launch vehicle custom-made by Space Pioneer for constructing satellite internet. The company explained that it has similar performance to SpaceX’s Falcon-9 in the U.S., with a diameter of 3.8 meters, a mass of 590 tons, and a payload capacity of 17 tons to Earth’s orbit and 14 tons to the sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
This rocket, developed to be reused more than 30 times a year, performed a hot test of the first stage’s nine-engine parallel power system at the Comprehensive Test Center in Gongyi at 3:43 PM that day.
The first-stage rocket ignited normally during the test run, with the engine thrust reaching 820 tons. However, due to a structural defect in the connection between the rocket and the test stand, the first-stage rocket separated from the launch pad, and power was lost, causing it to crash into a mountain 1.5 km southwest of the launch site.
The company stated, “The test site is far from the city, and we ensured safety measures and evacuated nearby personnel with the local government’s cooperation before the test,” and that no casualties had been reported.
Meanwhile, a similar incident occurred in China on June 22.
On that day, China launched a rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province, carrying a space gamma-ray burst observation satellite developed jointly with France on a Long March-2C rocket. Despite the China National Space Administration (CNSA) boasting of a complete success, controversy arose when footage of rocket debris falling in the nearby village of Xianqiao was captured.
Videos of residents fleeing in panic as the rocket debris crashed, emitting yellow smoke and loud noises, were widely shared online.
Authorities had announced that they planned to carry out a rocket debris recovery mission before and after the launch in the vicinity of Xinba Town, near Xianqiao village.
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