What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters

[Yazata]

https://x.com/SpaceIntel101/status/1804579173438304502

[C C]

https://x.com/SpaceIntel101/status/1804579173438304502

At least not enough fuel was left for a big explosion this time upon impact (or the video was cut off too soon).

[Yazata]

Here's better video. It fell very close to a small town and released a cloud of highly toxic dinitrogen tetroxide gas. The video seems to show the cloud engulfing some buildings, so I wonder if this caused any fatalities on the ground.

If it did, we know the Chinese government would deny it, and would censor any mention of it on the internet. Whoever posted these videos probably got a visit from the police and received major "social credit" demerits.

https://x.com/SpaceNosey/status/1804802463079202861

[Yazata]

Here's another one:

A Chinese "new space" company called Space Pioneer was attempting to conduct a static fire test of their Tianlong-3 orbital booster. But it broke free of its hold-down clamps, escaped from the test stand, ascended, shut down, then fell back in a huge fireball.

The Chinese are saying that there were no casualties on the ground. (I don't expect them to admit it if there were.)

https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5050998629862652#&video

https://spacenews.com/chinese-rocket-sta...explosion/

https://x.com/AJ_FI/status/1807339807640518690

https://x.com/AJ_FI/status/1807341023229554881

https://x.com/DutchSpace/status/1807354224176455947

[C C]

Here's another one:

A Chinese "new space" company called Space Pioneer was attempting to conduct a static fire test of their Tianlong-3 orbital booster. But it broke free of its hold-down clamps, escaped from the test stand, ascended, shut down, then fell back in a huge fireball.

The Chinese are saying that there were no casualties on the ground. (I don't expect them to admit it if there were.)

https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5050998629862652#&video

https://spacenews.com/chinese-rocket-sta...explosion/

https://x.com/AJ_FI/status/1807339807640518690

https://x.com/AJ_FI/status/1807341023229554881

https://x.com/DutchSpace/status/1807354224176455947

94% of the huge Chinese population is located in the Eastern part of the country (only 43% of the total land area). So, given the nearby metropolitan area of the vids and that degree of people density, a lack of casualties warrants skepticism.

But it is novel how most of their projects seem to be in hilly forest land. Bound to be bare flatland somewhere out west, yet apparently no incentive to deal with the remoteness from industry and technological resources.

[Yazata]

China's newest launch site is next to the South China Sea on Hainan island in the far south by Vietnam. A much better location that allows them to launch over water. But in typical Chinese style, it's very near a Hawaii style tropical beach resort with high-rise hotels.

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Today's not-so-static static fire:

The plan ---

[Image: GRUA_eLbUAAtGZr?format=jpg&name=360x360]

The reality --- (nobody seems to be able to recall this ever happening before)

[Image: GRUBWBAaMAAWtXA?format=png&name=medium]

[C C]

And, of course, what the activists and their receptive bureaucrat priests are concerned about is not the recklessness of rocketry in China, but directing ire at the more responsibly behaved launches and missions in the West (SpaceX, etc).

When rockets go wrong – protecting the environment from catastrophe
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240...t-launches

[Yazata]

It kind of looks like they tried to copy the Falcon 9, except with absurdly insufficient hold down attachments on the rocket body. These appear to have sheared off when they lit up their static test.

[Image: GRib9nTbEAAGSbh?format=jpg&name=small]

[Image: GRi5wywb0AE4PQu?format=jpg&name=small]

"Looks like it wasn't some clamp mechanism failure as there was no clamps in pic 1. More like the test stand latched onto the rocket body's v-shaped hooks (pic 3 and 4 have more details). Upon ignition, the 4 hooks that are part of the rocket body got sheared off cleanly.

So wasn't really the test stand fault as we initially thought - it was how those hooks attached to the rocket. Either bad / low-grade bolts gave away or they didn't do enough stress calculation/simulation?!"

https://x.com/J1NFENG/status/1808366737508950410

"Seems like the v-shaped hooks are connected to a trapezoid plate which is then bolted onto the bottom part of the rocket outer skin. It's hard to tell for 100% but the plate doesn't seem to be bolted onto the "thrust puck" structural frame!! No wonder it got ripped off"

https://x.com/J1NFENG/status/1808391691919151219

"I now have serious doubt on the structural design of the rocket as well as the test stand. The only not so negative side is the newly developed ox-rich staged combustion kerolox engine TH-12 seemingly performed well in this incident.

But techno issues aside, my biggest piss-off is the lack of safety standards and procedures. All were managed so poorly and carelessly. They were extremely lucky or this unguided missle with 100s tons of kerolox could've caused one of the biggest human casualties in the history of aerospace development."

https://x.com/J1NFENG/status/1808636004955533750

[Yazata]

About a day ago this thing fell from the sky just outside the very remote mining town of Newman in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It was said to be hot and smoking when it was discovered.

It was handed over to the Australian Space Agency, who say that it appears to be a pressure vessel or part of a rocket propellant tank.

Dr. Marco Langbroek of the Delft Technical University in the Netherlands believes that it is a COPV (carbon overwrapped pressure vessel) from something called COSPAR 2024-173L, which was the spent upper stage of a Chinese Jielong-3 rocket. The location and the time it fell correspond well with the object's decaying orbit track.

https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/10...ewman.html

[Image: G3rqFwEXIAA9Igw?format=jpg&name=medium]