The first of China’s new medium-sized carrier rocket Long March-7A suffered a failure, official media reported on Tuesday.
The rocket blasted off at 9:34 p.M. Beijing Time on Monday from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the coast of China’s Hainan province, but a malfunction occurred later, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Chinese space engineers will investigate the cause of the failure, it said. With plans to reach Mars and set up its own space station, China is developing new generation medium launch vehicles including the Long March-6A, Long March-7A and Long March-8. A test version of the Long March-5B, which has the largest carrying capacity to low-Earth orbit, has been produced and will be used to launch the modules of China’s space station, according to CASC.