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Facepalm: Chinese startups are attempting to emulate what SpaceX and Blue Origin achieved nearly a decade ago – the ability to land and reuse rockets. Although the road has been bumpy, at least one company has managed to document its failures with spectacular cinematography.
A re-entry "hop" test by Chinese rocket company Deep Blue Aerospace failed at the last second on Sunday, causing severe damage to the rocket and destroying its landing gear. The company quickly published a postmortem and shared impressive drone footage of the incident.
The two-minute clip captures the launch and attempted landing sequence from multiple angles as the drone circles the rocket, named Nebula-1. Everything appears to proceed smoothly until the engines deactivate too high above the ground, causing the rocket to crash into the center of the landing pad and explode at its base. Subsequent photos show that the main body remained mostly intact.
Full video pic.twitter.com/B8rzldKE5N
– Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) September 22, 2024
The goal was to land the rocket after launching it to an altitude between five and 10 kilometers at a test site in Inner Mongolia. Despite the hard landing, Deep Blue Aerospace considers the trial "mostly" successful, as 10 out of 11 objectives were completed. Another attempt is scheduled for November.
Powered by the Thunder-R liquid oxygen-kerosene engine, Nebula-1 is China's first liquid-fueled reusable rocket. In 2022, it successfully landed after reaching an altitude of one kilometer.
Deep Blue and other Chinese startups still have a long way to go to catch up with American competitors like SpaceX and Blue Origin, which successfully landed reusable rockets back in 2015 after launching them into space. Notably, SpaceX even managed to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone-controlled platform at sea.
Elsewhere, Boeing has faced more setbacks than any other aerospace company in recent memory. Two astronauts who were supposed to visit the International Space Station for a few days are now stuck there until at least next year due to various problems with Boeing's Starliner craft before and during the mission.
SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, scheduled for February 2025, will be the next opportunity to recover the stranded astronauts. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk continues to focus on his Martian ambitions, recently stating that SpaceX plans to send five unmanned missions to Mars within two years, with hopes of completing a manned mission before the end of the decade.