Unpacking the Space Pioneer Debacle
Plus yet more news on G60 ๐ฐ๏ธ , China and Kazakhstan's match made in heaven ๐ฐ๐ฟ, ADASpace's Malaysian adventures ๐ฒ๐พ, and a whole lot more
Dear Readers,
Happy August, and happy Olympics to those following. As a novice Olympic watcher myself Iโve been oddly mesmerized by archery this year, and I hope that youโve all found some time to enjoy the Games.
This month, friend of the Monitor Jean Deville of the Dongfang Hour contributed a deep-dive writeup into the Tianlong-3 unintentional dynamic fire test from late June, detailing what went wrong, what happened in the aftermath, and (with additions from me), what we should expect moving forward.
The Space Pioneer Debacle
On June 30, Space Pioneer (aka Tianbing Aerospace) attempted a static fire test of the Tianlong-3 rocket first stage at the Gongyi Test Center in Gongyi City, Henan Province. Powered by 9 engines, the static fire test was meant to be, well, static. And it was anything but, as the rocket stage came undone from its test bench, flew hundreds of meters into the Henan sky, before coming down to earth and exploding in a fireball. Tens of people at least captured incredible footage of a rising, then falling cylinder. Aftershocks were felt all around the Chinese and western internets.
In what was a <1 minute flight in total, the rocket stage broke free from the test stand, propelled itself far into the air (and well within view of many highrises nearby), before falling into a fiery wreck. Commentary from people filming on their smart phones was, expectedly, both brilliant and terrifying: โitโs coming down!!โ. And within 1 minute, Space Pioneer had gone from being arguably Chinaโs hottest launch startup to Chinese comercial space sector public enemy #1.
According to the Gongyi Emergency Management Bureau, the crash was in the safe zone, the fire was extinguished and there are no casualties. The fact that the rocket hit the safe zone was probably due to the relative short ascent time (<30 seconds), but had the engines stayed lit longer, the outcome could have been very different. The inhabited areas around the Gongyi Test Center had been evacuated prior to the test, as confirmed by the Daily Economic News (ๆฏๆฅ็ปๆตๆฐ้ป) who interviewed villagers after the accident. Nevertheless, material damage of villages (shattered glass, structural damage) was reported, and some minor injuries due to the shattered glass.
Interviews with Space Pioneer staff (Daily Economic News link above) following the accident state that while future testing will continue to take place at the Gonyi Test Center (which was not damaged by the accident), no โlarge scale testsโ would take place, likely meaning that the site will be used only for engine tests but not full rocket stage static fire tests.
Reasons for the Accident
Chinese netizens have traced Space Pioneerโs static fire test stand back to a patent registered in 2023 which states that the test stand can withstand a โmaximum of 600 tonsโ. The way it is phrased is unclear if the 600t refers to the thrust of the rocket being tested (in which case Space Pioneer exceeded the max capacity as the Tianlong-3 first stage reached 820 tons during the test!), or if it refers to the mass of the rocket being tested, in which case the test was within test stand tolerances (the fully fueled Tianlong-3 has a mass at most of 590 tons).
Further pictures of the stand after the accident suggest that the issue did not lie with the stand but with the rocket design: the connectors connecting to the test stand and the load bearing frame of the first stage were not integrated. This is why the connectors were torn away from the rocket body at ignition, and that these connectors are visible on the test stand after the accident (a great deep-dive technical analysis into the failure also available here from a Chinese netizen).
The Public Lashes Back over Space Pioneerโs Attitude
Space Pioneer seems to have opened a Weibo account specifically to address this issue (see ็ฉบ้ดๆ ), and published a statement on July 1. However the company received such backlash (no apology, seems to put forward the performance of the Tianlong-3) that they had to issue a formal apology the following day on July 2.
The initial statement by Space Pioneer also claimed that the shutdown of the engines were triggered automatically by the on-board computer as a safely measure post lift-off, but this is put in doubt by many space observers as footage shows that there is an engine explosion sometime during the ascent, followed by the shutdown of the other engines, which would suggest that itโs the explosion that triggered the engine shutdowns. These actions were loudly criticized by Chinese netizens.
Online criticism revolving around the following:
Company culture: The heavy work hours at Chinese commercial launch firms and possibly company culture, an issue not limited to Space Pioneer.
Proximity to the city of Gongyi, which while admittedly not Shanghai, is nonetheless a city of ~800,000 people.
A stupid mistake: former CALT Xiโan leadership criticized the accident as being a โlow-level failureโ, highlighting that this kind of connection error would have never been made within the โNational Teamโ, and that commercial companies needed to focus more on safety.
Absence of an apology in the immediate aftermath, and attitude of some Space Pioneer staff bragging about their โengines being too powerfulโ to the media in the immediate aftermath. Not a great look.
Despite all of the above, the official response appears to have been relatively muted, with Xinhua publishing a more moderate piece that even took a slightly supportive stance of Space Pioneer, stating that this failure should not be an obstacle but a โstepping stoneโ to move forward.
What Does This Mean Moving Forward?
The Space Pioneer disaster is likely to have several long-term ramifications:
The breakneck pace of Chinese space industry development might slow down. A bit. It seems fair to say that up to now, of the 20-25 Chinese commercial launch companies, some are more cautious than others with regard to safety. Likewise, some have noticably moved faster than others, sometimes in ways that appear to involve laxer safety standards. That being the case, given the high-profile nature of this very close call, itโs likely that the more cavalier Chinese commercial space companies will start to hold their horses, as it were. Especially the ones that are unintentionally hurling metallic cylinders full of explosive fuel into the sky.
The industry might adopt more stringent, and more standardized safety and product standards. This would, again, slow development in the short-run, but long-run might make things more standardized, and likely safer.
For at least a short while, prospective customers might shy away from Space Pioneer. As noted above, the company really dropped the ball in the aftermath of this accident. Given the public outry around this, and the plethora of other commercial launchers offering their services, if youโre a commercial satellite operator in China today, you might prefer to go with another launch service provider to avoid getting your fingerprints all over this train wreck.
Overall, itโs highly unlikely that a single catastrophic failure of a rocket stage is enough to derail the rising Chinese commercial space sector. Space Pioneer is likely to face some damning questions in the short-term, and maybe this is bad enough to where the company will be meaningfully adversely impacted in the long-run. But as for all the other launch companies: theyโre going to up their safety standards and they might slow down their pace of development. But theyโre pretty likely to keep moving onward and upward, while probably avoiding rocket stage tests in urban areas.
And in Other News this Month
An interesting piece on a Ku-band phased array antenna that was apparently developed by APT Mobile Satcom, possibly with partners. The mini version of the device retails for ยฅ59,800 (~US$8,000), and the product received some press because it was awarded a โAI Innovation Pilot Partner Awardโ by China Unicom Airnet at the China Unicom 2024 Partner Conference. According to an article from Satellite World, the terminal can do over-the-air software updates, and in the future will be backward compatible with LEO comms satellites.
For anyone with a spare couple million dollars, ChinaSat-6E has a full 36 MHz C-band transponder with coverage of China, Mongolia, Korean Peninsula, Japan, and parts of Russia and Southeast Asia. The transponder was unusually listed publicly for ยฅ11.88M for a year lease (US$1.6M, or $3,700/MHz/month).
China and Kazakhstan held talks on commercial spaceport collaboration, this coming just a handful of days after an unplanned and ill-fated Space Pioneer test launch. The 3 July announcemend noted that both governments โsupport their aerospace institutions and enterprises in discussing the possibility of the commercial use of each other's space launch sitesโ. TBD, but there are certainly a lot of Chinese commercial launch companies that might be interested to launch from Baikonur.
IoT/remote sensing constellation operator ADASpace announced a โspace computing cooperation agreementโ with leading Malaysian commercial space company Angkasa-X. The agreement calls for the joint development of a satellite AIT center in Malaysia, alongside the ASEANSat and ASEANLink satellite constellation concepts. For what itโs worth, later in the month ADASpace also inked an agreement with Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) on space computing technology research.
The Government of Shanghai signed a cooperation agreement with CASC, whereby CASC agreed to help Shanghai in โdeepening the development of the cityโs โFive Centersโ of the space industryโ. The first of the โFive Centersโ is the G60 development corridor, and the associated G60 constellation. We speculate, but all else equal, this might not be great news for G60. Why? Because G60 already has a blank check from the Shanghai Government to build their constellation, and if they really wanted to buy satellites from CASC, they could go buy them. My two cents: having CASC involved at this level and in this context is more likely to slow the project down than to speed it up. Time shall tell.
Speaking of G60, with their first batch launch expected on 5 August from Hainan, the company announced this month that their second batch of satellites has been completed. This was marked by a 22-24 July special review meeting between Genesat (the manufacturer of G60), SAST, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and others.
Hong Kong-based USpace (formerly HKATG) published a price list for 6 different types of optical remote sensing satellites. The price list (shown below) shows some incredibly low prices for not cutting-edge optical EO satellites, with a 5m resolution satellite retailing for the same price as a mid-range car. That said, the price list below is clearly overly simplified (no mention of swath or other parameters?), and USpace is, among other things, known for promising big and delivering somewhat smaller.
Emposat subsidiary Sanyuan Space shared new details of their on-orbit servicing device, and indicated a possible new funding round. For their part, the company explained their mission: โWith the rapid deployment of satellite internet constellations, the need to clean up space debris and prevent collisions is becoming increasingly apparent, and space on-orbit operations and services are expected to see explosive growth. Sanyuan Space has the capabilities of SSA, target measurement, and on-orbit rendezvousโ. Given the success of parent company Emposat (provided TT&C for hundreds of commercial satellites), we take Sanyuan Space fairly seriously.
In our constantly-evolving coverage of the Chinese space industry supply chain, we learned this month that the Shanghai Space Propulsion Research Institute (aka SAST 801st Institute) provided 490N thruster engines for the Smart SkyNet-1A satellite launched into MEO in May 2024. The thrusters were used to carry out 4 orbit changes with total working time of a very precise 5,482 seconds. For more info on Chinese space industry supply chain data, reach out, we have thousands of such data points.
China Rocket announced that their 4th Jielong-3 rocket passed factory review in preparation for an August 2024 launch. The most recent Jielong-3 launch took place in February 2024 from a sea launch facility off the coast of Yangjiang, Guangdong Province. The upcoming Jielong-3 will be launched from the Haiyang Oriental Sea Launch Facility in Shandong Province. The month also saw an insightful interview with China Rocket officials, including Director of Market Development Zhou Xiantao.
The city of Wuxi held a โSpace Information Conference and Digital Earth Ecological Summitโ in early July, during which time they signed a ยฅ3B agreement with publicly-traded data analytics platform builder GEOVIS for โChinaโs first space information industrial chainโ. The conference also saw the unveiling of a โSatellite Valley Industrial Parkโ in Wuxi. All things considered, a few takeaways: 1) Wuxi has thrown hundeds of millions of USD, at least, at the space sector so far in 2024 via investment rounds in many companies (MinoSpace, Space Pioneer, HiStarlink to name a few). The conference was a clear indicator of the cityโs keenness for space. And 2) the agreement with GEOVIS shows that in addition to being an investor, Wuxi also intends to be a customer of space companies when it makes sense. For a full debriefing on the conference, get in touch, we had people on the ground there.
Chinaโs Deep Space Exploration Lab (DSEL) signed an MoU with the Hungarian Heliophysics Foundation ๐ญ๐บ during a visit by Professor Robert von Fay-Siebenbogen to Hefei, capital of Anhui Province. Interestingly, in addition to his Hungarian Heliophysics Foundation hat, Professor von Fay-Siebenbogen appears to work at the University of Sheffield in the UK.
And that, as they say, is all folks. Thanks for reading, see you next month!
Blaine