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China’s iSpace Hyperbola-1 rocket fails soon after launch, losing 3 weather satellites
- The setback is the fourth recent failure for the commercial rocket start-up
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Ling Xinin Ohio
A Chinese rocket start-up has suffered another launch failure, resulting in the loss of three satellites as part of a commercial constellation being assembled for global weather forecasting and earthquake prediction.
Hyperbola-1 – a 24-metre (79ft) high solid-fuel rocket produced by iSpace – lifted off on Thursday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert at 7.40am Beijing time, the company said in a post on its official WeChat account.
“The rocket’s first, second and third stages flew normally, but the fourth stage suffered an anomaly and the launch mission ended in failure,” the company said, adding that the specific reasons for the failure would be announced as soon as possible after detailed investigations.
The relatively small Hyperbola-1, which can deliver a 300kg (661 pound) payload into a 500km (311 mile) sun-synchronous orbit, was carrying Yunyao-1 weather satellites 15, 16 and 17 for the Tianjin-based Yunyao Aerospace Technology company. The satellites did not reach orbit.
Yunyao Aerospace Technology had planned to launch nearly 40 satellites this year to complete its 90-satellite Yunyao-1 constellation by next year.
“Our constellation will break a foreign monopoly and provide high-resolution, high-precision, and all-scale weather monitoring and earthquake early warning services to Belt and Road Initiative countries,” a Yunyao Aerospace representative told Tianjin Daily in January.
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