Following a launch on Friday local time, a Chinese rocket booster fell near a small town in southwest China, where it exploded and caught fire, GBTimes reports. It was one of four strap-on boosters used on China’s Long March 3B rocket, which had lofted two satellites into orbit before the crash. People living in the town Xiangdu, located in China’s Guangxi region, caught video of the booster as it fell perilously close to buildings and then erupted in flames.
The Long March 3B takes off from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center, located in the country’s Sichuan province. Unlike most major launchpads in the US, the center is located many hundreds of miles from China’s coastline, so rockets launched from the site have to fly over land to get to orbit. That means when the rocket sheds parts during a flight, such as the strap-on boosters that give the vehicle extra thrust, these parts will fall in a designated drop zone over land. And many towns might be located in that zone.
“There are notices released for the drop zones, depending on what kind of launch and where it’s going,” Andrew Jones, a freelance journalist covering China’s spaceflight program, tells The Verge. “For some places, they’ll evacuate a town or an area, and they try to calculate these drop zones quite carefully to avoid as many inhabited areas as possible.”
After the crash, locals trekked up to the fallen booster to capture more video of the burning wreckage. The booster appears not have to damaged anyone or any buildings. However, the Long March 3B does use toxic propellants, such as hydrazine, which can be dangerous if it gets on someone’s skin or it’s inhaled, according to Jones. Fortunately, most of the booster’s propellant should be exhausted by the time it falls off the rocket. Still, what’s left in the rocket could pose a health risk to onlookers.
Many of China’s launch sites were built inland during the Cold War in order to keep them safe, since some of these facilities were also related to the country’s nuclear weapons programs. “Back in the Cold War, they had very high tensions with the Soviet Union and also the United States was considering a preemptive strike against China’s nascent nuclear weapons capabilities,” says Jones. “It was really to keep them away from the coast to keep them from being targeted.”
This decision has led to some fatal rocket accidents in the past. In 1996, a Long March 3B took off from the same Xichang Satellite Launch Center and accidentally strayed off course, landing in a nearby town. The crash destroyed dozens of homes, killed six people, and injured 57 others.
China is moving toward safer rocket launches, though. The country has been working on a new class of rockets, the Long March, 5, 6, and 7, which use less toxic propellants. And two of these vehicles, the 5 and 7, take off from China’s new Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the island of Hainan in the South China Sea. That launchpad is located just off the coast, allowing rockets to launch over water instead of land.
However, these rockets are still fairly new vehicles, and the Long March 5 suffered a major failure last year. So China will likely continue to rely on its over-land rockets, which the country has been using for decades. “I think it’s going to be going on for a few years,” says Jones.
Comments
Hey guys let’s get really close to this gigantic rocket that’s on fire.
By soldieroscar on 01.12.18 11:38am
I’m sure that unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine and red fuming nitric acid is great to breath in.
By Supraman21 on 01.12.18 12:53pm
Didn’t know hydrazine was still in use outside long term storage missiles… China sure is high tech.
By Oldarney on 01.12.18 1:58pm
Bet you didn’t know it’s used on all satellites and the space shuttle’s OMS
Bet you also didn’t know SRM fuel is even more toxic
By MCP1804 on 01.13.18 4:19am
On satellites it makes sense… the Dragon 1 and 2 both use it. It makes sense for small things in space… but not on large peacetime vehicles. Solid Rockets are very reliable though… less likely to RUD on pad and cause a temporary hazmat situation.
By Oldarney on 01.16.18 12:41pm
People crowded around filming with their phones is an good snapshot of today’s culture.
By Sl1mJ1m on 01.12.18 1:03pm
Isn’t that what everyone going to see the Falcon Heavy launch doing
By omo on 01.13.18 1:09am
This is one of those things that would never happen in a Western democratic country. As much as I understand the need for ballistic missile stations inland, firing non-military science-based spacecraft off from areas which may pose a risk to civilians is just plain ridiculous. Especially if they are unable to land themselves like the Falcon presently does.
If the US and China were on better terms, technology sharing for the purpose of saving lives would have been a good thing for both nations. Too bad they see each other as rivals rather than allies.
By Buggy3D on 01.12.18 12:46pm
maybe Tesla could share the technology with them in exchange for a chance to build their own factory in China (without a local partner)
By Fakejoshuatopolsky on 01.12.18 12:50pm
No, Id rather Tesla not share any technology with the Chinese. They would then flip it around and undercut us.
By GlobalInfoOp on 01.12.18 5:43pm
Umm, Tesla is not SpaceX, you do know the difference right?
By MCP1804 on 01.13.18 4:16am
Again, for that to happen, both nations would have to build trust before that is ever allowed to happen. It can start with more cooperation from China on the North Korean problem at the moment.
By Buggy3D on 01.15.18 4:24pm
Funny side effect of being this reckless is the value of life goes down and people start having more babies… total opposite of what they’ve been trying to do.
By Oldarney on 01.12.18 2:00pm
As noted in the linked article, the death toll of the Long March 3B accident referenced above is disputed by Western staff who were involved with the launch. Supposedly an entire village was leveled.
By Johnny Socko on 01.12.18 3:01pm
Problem is there are no village nearby, because people don’t live 2 km from a spaceport
There is a residential area for onsite staff near the impact site, which was evacuated because it was under the flight path.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2326/1
The western staff saw some burnt buildings and concluded there must be hundreds of people crowded in it just for this launch, that’s the "dispute"
By MCP1804 on 01.13.18 4:57am
Have to at least give the Verge credit for writing "near Chinese town" instead of "inside Chinese town" like some other sites, not everyone’s willing to sacrafice clicks for accuracy these days.
Although the truth is it didn’t even land near a Chinese town, it landed in a remote designated drop zone on the side of a mountain, which in China inevitably has a village within visual distance, a village where locals apparently care more about making a viral video than following evacuation orders.
By MCP1804 on 01.13.18 4:48am