Chinese private company’s rocket fails to take off, damaging three satellites

A rocket from China’s iSpace suffered a launch failure, resulting in the loss of three satellites designed to improve weather and seismic forecasts around the world, the company said today.

The Hyperbola-1 rocket was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Gobi Desert at 7:40 a.m. local time on Thursday (00:40 a.m. in Lisbon).

“The first three stages of the rocket were operating normally, but an abnormality occurred in the fourth stage and the launch mission failed,” the company said on its official Wechat social media account, adding that the specific reasons for the failure would be announced as soon as possible after a “detailed investigation.”

Hyperbola-1, capable of carrying a payload of 300 kilograms, delivered Yunyao-1 meteorological satellites numbered 15, 16 and 17 for China’s Yunyao Aerospace Technology.

As a result of the accident, the satellites were never launched into orbit.

iSpace was one of the Chinese private companies that pioneered rocket launches in 2019. But Thursday’s failed launch marked the fourth failure of Hyperbola-1 in seven launch attempts.

The company is also developing a reusable medium-sized rocket known as Hyperbola 3, which uses methane and liquid oxygen as fuel and was successfully tested in November last year.

In late June, a structural failure during a test caused a rocket to crash on the outskirts of the central Chinese city of Gongyi, without causing casualties.

The incident occurred at the test site when the Tianlong-3 rocket, operated by Space Pioneer, unexpectedly took off due to a “structural failure of the rocket body connection with the test platform.”