China’s iSpace Suffers Third Consecutive Failure of Hyperbola-1 Rocket
Friday the 13th was an unlucky day for Chinese launch provider iSpace, which saw its Hyperbola-1 rocket suffer its third straight launch failure.
The Xinhua news agency reported the Hyperbola-1 rocket suffered “abnormal performance” after lifting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 3:09 p.m. Beijing time (3:09 a.m. EDT). The cause of the failure is under investigation, the agency said.
The Jilin-1 Mofang-01A Earth observation satellite was lost in the failure. It was a replacement for a satellite lost when a Hyperbola 1 booster failed in August 2021. The rocket also failed to orbit unidentified payloads in February 2021.
The four-stage, solid-fuel booster is now one for four in launches since a successful maiden flight in July 2019 for which iSpace became the first private Chinese company to orbit a satellite.
2 responses to “China’s iSpace Suffers Third Consecutive Failure of Hyperbola-1 Rocket”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Building solid rocket startups like it’s 1980
If that company has an improved formula as good as they claim in ten years it might be that quad-stage solid fuel launch vehicles are all that is left launching satellites. Maybe a liquid fourth stage. They could be the new spacex and put the old spacex out of business. Hard to compete with solids since they are poured as THE engine and that is about all there is to it. Just need something with more Isp.