Company Space Pioneer says first stage of its Tianlong-3 launched during test after ‘structural failure’ and crashed in hills near city of Gongyi

Chinese space rocket crashes in flames after accidental launch

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2024-07-01 06:00:04

Company Space Pioneer says first stage of its Tianlong-3 launched during test after ‘structural failure’ and crashed in hills near city of Gongyi

The space rocket of a Chinese private company crashed and exploded into flames near a city on Sunday, after it accidentally launched during a test.

The first stage of the Tianlong-3 rocket left its launch pad due to a structural failure at the connection between the rocket and the test stand, said company Beijing Tianbing, also known as Space Pioneer, in a statement on its official WeChat account. The rocket landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China, it said.

Video footage from the incident published by Chinese digital media outlet The Paper showed the rocket soaring straight up into the air before losing power and turning horizontally, falling back down to earth and exploding into flames on nearby forested hills.

Wow. This is apparently what was supposed to be a STATIC FIRE TEST today of a Tianlong-3 first stage by China's Space Pioneer. That's catastrophic, not static. Firm was targeting an orbital launch in the coming months. https://t.co/BY9MgJeE7A pic.twitter.com/L6ronwLW1N