China’s iSpace Hyperbola-1 Rocket Fails Shortly After Launch
A Chinese rocket start-up has experienced another launch failure, losing three satellites intended for a commercial constellation aimed at global weather forecasting and earthquake prediction, South China Morning Post reported.
The Hyperbola-1, a 24-meter (79-foot) high solid-fuel rocket produced by iSpace, launched on Thursday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert at 7:40 am Beijing time, according to a post on the company’s official WeChat account.
“The rocket’s first, second, and third stages flew normally, but the fourth stage encountered an anomaly, causing the mission to fail,” the company reported, adding that the specific reasons for the failure would be announced after detailed investigations.
The relatively small Hyperbola-1, capable of delivering a 300 kg (661 lb) payload into a 500 km (311 mile) sun-synchronous orbit, was carrying Yunyao-1 weather satellites 15, 16, and 17 for 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.
In 2019, iSpace became China’s first private rocket company to reach Earth orbit with Hyperbola-1. However, since then, the rocket has failed on three consecutive occasions. The issues have ranged from a first-stage steering fin damaged by falling insulation foam to a fuel leak in the second-stage altitude control system.
Thursday’s launch marked Hyperbola-1’s fourth failure out of seven orbital launch attempts.
The company has also been developing a medium-lift, reusable rocket known as Hyperbola-3, which uses methane and liquid oxygen. In 2020, iSpace raised US$173 million in series B-round fundraising to develop this rocket.
In November, iSpace conducted a successful vertical take-off and vertical landing experiment with a Hyperbola-3 test rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. The rocket reached an altitude of 178 meters during a 51-second flight before landing safely.
