Insider Brief
- Beijing Tianbing Technology Co, also known as Space Pioneer, announced that the first stage of its under-development Tianlong-3 rocket detached from its launch pad and crashed.
- The company blamed the unexpected launch on a structural failure.
- The Tianlong-3 is is similar to SpaceX’s rockets, specifically the Falcon 9.
- Image: X screen grab/NDTV
Beijing Tianbing Technology Co, also known as Space Pioneer, announced that the first stage of its under-development Tianlong-3 rocket detached from its launch pad and crashed during a test due to a structural failure. The incident occurred in the hilly area of Gongyi, a city in central China’s Henan province, according to a statement released by the company on its official WeChat account, as reported by NDTV.
No casualties were reported following an initial investigation.
The detached rocket stage, which scattered parts within a designated “safe area,” caused a local fire. However, the Gongyi Emergency Management Bureau confirmed that the fire has since been extinguished, and no injuries were sustained.
The Tianlong-3, also known as “Sky Dragon 3,” is a two-stage, partly reusable rocket under development by Space Pioneer.It is similar to SpaceX’s rockets, specifically the Falcon 9. Both rockets are designed to be partly reusable, which is a a design intended to reduce the overall cost of space missions.
This company is one of several private-sector rocket makers in China that have rapidly emerged over the past five years.
The mishap is unusual in China’s space industry, where falling rocket debris is not unheard of, but an unplanned flight and crash of a rocket under development is quite rare, NDTV reports. According to several media reports, Space Pioneer, the first stage of the Tianlong-3 ignited normally during a hot test but detached from the test bench due to structural failure, landing 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) away in a hilly area.
Space Pioneer has been making significant strides in the commercial space sector. In April 2023, the company launched the Tianlong-2, a kerosene-oxygen rocket, becoming the first private Chinese firm to send a liquid-propellant rocket into space. Since 2014, when private investment in the space industry was permitted by the state, many Chinese commercial space companies have emerged, focusing on both satellite production and the development of reusable rockets to reduce mission costs.
While most test sites for these companies are located along China’s coastal areas for safety reasons, some, like Space Pioneer’s test center, are situated deep within the country’s interior, such as in Gongyi, a city with a population of 800,000.
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