Chinese Rocket Suffers (Another) Accident And Crashes Three Satellites

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

"The first three phases of the rocket operated normally, but the fourth phase suffered an anomaly and the launch mission ended in failure," the company declared on its official Wechat social media account, adding that the specific reasons for the failure would be announced as soon as possible. quickly as possible after a "detailed investigation".

Hyperbola-1, which can carry a payload of 300 kilograms, carried Yunyao-1 weather satellites numbers 15, 16 and 17 for Chinese company Yunyao Aerospace Technology.

As a result of the failure, the satellites were never placed into orbit.

The company iSpace became one of the Chinese private companies that pioneered rocket launches in 2019. However, Thursday's failed launch marked Hyperbola-1's fourth failure in seven launch attempts.

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

At the end of June, a structural failure during a test caused a rocket to crash on the outskirts of the city of Gongyi, in central China, without fatalities.

The incident occurred at a test site when a Tianlong-3 rocket, operated by the company Space Pioneer, took off unexpectedly due to a "structural failure in the connection between the rocket body and the test platform".