Two rockets in China failed to launch successfully in a single day, with failures occurring in both state-owned and private enterprises. The specific causes are currently under analysis and investigation.
According to Xinhua News Agency, at 00:55 on Saturday (January 17), China launched the Shijian-32 satellite using a Long March 3B carrier rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The rocket flight was abnormal, resulting in a failed launch mission.
At 12:08 on the same day, the Ceres-2 private commercial carrier rocket ignited and lifted off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket flight was abnormal, and the maiden flight test mission also failed. The company stated that it would make every effort to determine the cause of the failure and organize a reflight.
The specific causes of both launch failures are still under further analysis and investigation.
According to Yicai, the Long March 3A rocket series, which includes the Long March 3B, undertakes most of China’s high-orbit space mission launches and is known as the "workhorse" due to its high frequency of launches and high success rate.
However, in the current space sector, the rocket launch phase remains a clear bottleneck and a key restricting factor. The specific difficulties include a low overall supply of available rockets, insufficient single-rocket capacity, and high capacity costs. Private rocket companies still lack launch experience, and there is still a large gap in launch success rates compared to the Long March series.
China’s verification of reusable technology, which is key to reducing rocket launch costs, has recently suffered two failures. In December last year, the maiden flight of the reusable Zhuque-3 carrier rocket under LandSpace, which is preparing to go public, succeeded, but the recovery of a booster stage failed. The first flight of China’s second reusable rocket, the Long March 12A, was also successful, but its first-stage rocket recovery mission failed.