Fortunately, there were no casualties, and the missile landed in a mountainous area.
On Sunday, Beijing-based Space Pioneer conducted a fire test of the first stage of its private Tianlong-3 rocket in Gongyi, a city of about 800,000 people in central China’s Henan province. However, during the ignition of the engines, the fastening mechanism on the launch pad failed, and the rocket itself suddenly took off.
The unplanned flight lasted about 50 seconds and eventually Tianlong-3 landed nearby in the mountains — however, with a spectacular explosion that was captured on video by several spectators.
Whoops…. possible Tianlong-3 first stage test failure…
source: https://t.co/Z8CAyfPsCl pic.twitter.com/2WWQr4pC4O
— DutchSpace (@DutchSpace) June 30, 2024
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
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 30, 2024
Representatives of the Henan Provincial Emergency Management Office reported that no one was injured in the explosion. Meanwhile, Space Pioneer reported a «structural failure» in the connection between the stage and the test bench, but the rocket’s onboard computer shut down the engines automatically after detecting unusual activity, and Tianlong-3 landed explosively in the mountains.
Space Pioneer has already put Tianlong-2 into orbit, becoming the first private rocket to do so. Tianlong-3, meanwhile, is designed for reusability and, according to SpaceNewsbased on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 model.
It is expected that Tianlong-3 will be able to carry up to 17 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, while its predecessor had a limit of 2 tons.
The new iteration of the rocket is still under development, but Sunday’s accident is likely to make some adjustments to the timeline for testing and potential launch.
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