China’s attempt to launch its most powerful privately developed rocket failed on Friday after the vehicle suffered a flight anomaly.
The Tianlong-3 rocket is being developed in hopes of breaking a key bottleneck in the country’s roll-out of internet satellite megaconstellations to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink.
The Tianlong-3, built by Beijing-based start-up Space Pioneer and seen as China’s answer to the US company’s workhorse, the reusable Falcon 9, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert at 12.17pm on Friday, according to state-owned financial news outlet Cailian Press.
An anomaly occurred during the flight, resulting in a launch failure. The mission team would conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the mission and carry out improvement work, it said.
The 72-metre (236 feet) tall, 3.8-metre (12ft 6in) wide rocket, capable of delivering up to 22 tonnes to low Earth orbit, is capable of carrying 36 satellites for the Qianfan broadband megaconstellation in a single launch.
So far, 108 Qianfan satellites have been launched into orbit – a fraction of its target of roughly 1,300 orbiting satellites by the end of next year and not much closer to the longer-term goal of more than 15,000 by 2030.
