Rocket developed by private Chinese firm fails, loses three satellites

The 22nd flight of the Ceres 1 rocket type, developed by private rocket maker Galactic Energy, failed on Monday, leading to the loss of three satellites, according to the company.

Galactic Energy said in a statement that the rocket blasted off at 12:02 pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and worked normally until its fourth stage malfunctioned and shut down the engine too early.

It noted that engineers are probing into possible reasons for the failure.

The solid-propellant Ceres 1 model stands about 20 meters tall, with a diameter of 1.4 meters. It primarily burns solid propellant and has a liftoff weight of 33 metric tons. It can deliver a single 300-kilogram satellite or multiple satellites with a combined weight of 300 kilograms into a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit. It can also carry a 350-kilogram payload to a low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 200 kilometers.

Twenty of the rocket's 22 flights so far were successful and placed 85 commercial satellites into orbit.