The Chinese Tianlong-3 rocket ripped off parts of the rocket when it broke free of the test stand. It was supposed to be held in place in the test. The rocket was not complete without grid fins. There were pieces falling off when it broke free and the engines did not sound correct and there were no fins to stabilize the flight. The rocket was months from being complete.
They were lucky that the damage upon accidental takeoff caused the rocket to fail quickly and fall back and explode in the exclusion zone.
The launch site was surrounded by habitated areas. If the rocket had continued to fly then it could have ended up crashing into an urban area.
Wow. This is apparently what was supposed to be a STATIC FIRE TEST today of a Tianlong-3 first stage by China's Space Pioneer. That's catastrophic, not static. Firm was targeting an orbital launch in the coming months. https://t.co/BY9MgJeE7A pic.twitter.com/L6ronwLW1N
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 30, 2024
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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That’s the problem with stealing designs, there’s always a minor detail (or two) you missed.
Chinese steel is guaranteed to fail.
That rocket really wanted to fly
With ‘China’s speed’, they will catch up around 2026 – my prediction.
Catchup to SpaceX? Like Falcon 9 reuse?
something comparable to Starship, few people know this, but they are working on developing something similar in capabilities, Brian knows, he reported it last year or in 2022. They don’t show us new videos but I am sure small army of 130IQ engineers is working on it somewhere in China and we will see it in late 2024 or in 2025.
The challenging part for them will be the engines; Most of Starship is actually relatively easy, being welded stainless steel. The tail balancing control is the sort of thing that was being done here in the 90’s with the McDonald Douglas “Delta Clipper” rocket. I’m sure the Chinese won’t have any trouble managing that.
But the Raptor engines are bleeding edge, and their high performance is a real driver for the cost effectiveness of Starship. It’s really all down to how good their industrial espionage is.
The development of Starship is probably the most open rocket development program in human history. I have to imagine the Chinese know every single detail that’s going on.