China’s private rocket fails to reach orbit
China’s first private satellite launch was unsuccessful due to the carrier rocket failing to reach orbit, Reuters reported.
The Zhuque-1 rocket was designed by Chinese space company Landspace and comprised three stages.
While the first and second stages functioned according to plan, an issue with fairing separation on the third stage resulted in the failure of the mission.
Landspace spent around $14 million on the development of the Zhuque-1 rocket, which is 19 metres tall, has a payload capacity of 300kg, and weighs a total of 27 tons.
The rocket was meant to launch a small satellite for China Central Television (CCTV) which includes hardware designed for remote sensing and space science experiments.
30 rocket launches have been conducted in China this year, with Landspace’s Zhuque-1 mission being the first failure in the country since July 2017.
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