June 30, Gongyi, Henan. Videos posted by several citizens showed a rocket emitting black smoke during its flight, which then fell and caught fire.
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The reporter learned from a number of people familiar with the matter that the rocket involved in the accident was the first flight of the Tianlong No. 3 of the Tianbing Technology Company, and the test run part was the first stage of the rocket. According to the official website of Tianbing Technology, the Tianlong-3 rocket is the first large-scale liquid launch vehicle in domestic commercial aerospace, the rocket adopts a two-stage configuration design, with liquid oxygen and kerosene as the main propellant, the rocket will complete the first flight mission in September 2024 as planned, and has more than 30 commercial launches per year within three years after the first flight.
In response to this situation, @巩义发布 subsequently issued a bulletin.
Information briefings
At 15:43 on June 30, 2024, Tianbing Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd. carried out a test run of the launch vehicle (commercial) sub-stage power system at the Gongyi Comprehensive Test Center. The security zone is deep in the mountains, far away from residential areas. At present, the fire has been completely extinguished, and after investigation, there are no casualties.
Gongyi City Emergency Management Bureau
Source: Cover News
Tianbing Technology is a Chinese private commercial aerospace company founded on April 10, 2019. The company is mainly committed to the research and development of a new generation of liquid rocket engines and medium and large liquid launch vehicles. In April 2023, Tianbing Technology's Tianlong-2 Yao-1 carrier rocket was successfully launched from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, setting 8 commercial space records including the successful first flight of the world's private liquid rocket.
Source: Cover News
On the evening of the 30th, Beijing Tianbing Technology Co., Ltd. issued the "Explanation on the Test Run of the First Sub-stage Power System of the Tianlong-3 Large Liquid Launch Vehicle", saying that at 3:43 p.m. on June 30, the Tianlong-3 liquid launch vehicle independently developed by Tianbing Science and Technology carried out a hot test of a sub-stage nine-machine parallel power system in the Comprehensive Test Center of Gongyi City, Henan.
During the test run, a sub-stage rocket ignited normally, the engine thrust reached 820 tons, due to the failure of the structure of the connection between the rocket body and the test bench, a sub-stage rocket detached from the launch pad, after liftoff, the rocket computer actively shut down, the rocket fell into the deep mountains 1.5 kilometers southwest of the test bench, and the rocket body fell into the mountains and disintegrated. The test site is far away from Gongyi City, and before the test, we jointly improved safety and security measures with the local government and organized the evacuation of surrounding personnel in advance.
Tianlong-3 is a large-scale liquid launch vehicle tailored by Tianbing Technology for the construction of the mainland satellite Internet constellation, and its product performance is comparable to SpaceX's Falcon 9, with a diameter of 3.8 meters, a take-off mass of 590 tons, a low earth orbit (LEO) capacity of 17 tons, and a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) capacity of 14 tons.
The test run of the power system of the Tianlong-3 launch vehicle is the simultaneous ignition of nine TH-12 (Tianhuo 12) engines of a sub-stage, which is the largest thrust test of the launch vehicle in the development process of the mainland at this stage, and an increase of two times compared with the previous maximum thrust test of China's aerospace space.
The company said that thanks to friends from all walks of life and superior authorities for their attention to Tianbing Technology, the company will complete the failure zero as soon as possible, and organize the production and testing of new products.
Source: First Field Synthesis