Space News

Launch of a new Chinese Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket ended in failure Friday resulting in the loss of two satellites.

The Kuaizhou-11 lifted off at 12:17 a.m. Eastern from a transporter erector launcher at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, northwest China.

Video footage of the launch taken from a delayed stream indicates the rocket performed well for at least one minute, with unofficial reports of first and second stage separation.

Terse reports from Chinese media state that the specific cause of the failure is ‘under further analysis and investigation’.

The first payload was a Jilin-1 video satellite developed by Changguang Satellite Co. Ltd., for Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing website. Changguang Satellite is a commercial offshoot of the state-owned Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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