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.
Photo: Social Media, Reuters
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.
Beijing has quietly confirmed the deaths of two Chinese sailors in a collision in the contested South China Sea, according to government statements nearly a year after the incident. In August last year, a China Coast Guard ship collided bow first with a Chinese naval destroyer while chasing a Philippine patrol boat near the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), video footage released by Manila showed. A China Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed at the time that there had been a confrontation, but did not mention the collision, nor injuries or deaths. The Chinese People’s Armed Police Force said on social media on Wednesday
South Korean police yesterday raided the Starbucks national headquarters, the chain’s local operator told reporters, following allegations that an advertising campaign defamed activists slain in 1980 pro-democracy protests. Seoul-based Starbucks Korea caused an uproar this year when it launched a “Tank Day” promotion on May 18, touting a new line of capacious tumblers for its coffee beverages. The date marked the anniversary of the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising, when at least 165 civilians were killed as a military dictatorship rolled tanks out onto the streets. The chain was accused of trivializing the nation’s landmark protest movement and insulting the dead, remembered as martyrs
‘COCKROACH’ PARTY: The youth-led movement said it plans to travel across the nation to gather ideas for reforms directly from the public, but will not join elections The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which spearheaded one of India’s biggest student protests, yesterday accused authorities of violating an agreement by pursuing participants and reiterated that it would remain a pressure group rather than enter electoral politics. Police continue to investigate cases against some students who took part in the New Delhi protests last month, despite a government agreement to withdraw legal action, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka told Bloomberg Television’s Menaka Doshi. The group had called off the protests after the agreement was reached. “There were clear instances where this agreement was reneged,” Ranka said, citing cases that remained active in several
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he was once more trying to limit the number of people who are born in the country who can become American citizens, in a sign that even after his first attempt at limiting birthright citizenship was rejected by the Supreme Court, he was ready to try again. Trump said he was signing two executive actions on immigration, including one limiting the number of people eligible for American citizenship after being born in the US. The written executive order released later on Thursday was narrower in scope than the previous one shot down by the
RSS