Tianlong-3 catastrophic failure on launch | Hacker News Reader

Tianlong-3 catastrophic failure on launch

twitter.com

19 pointshaunter8 comments

There's a thread on reddit with a bunch of translated comments from Chinese social media and evidently nobody knew there was a rocket base there. Not even people from Gongyi, where it is.

https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1drzauu/...

This happened 3 hours ago btw

Update: https://www.msn.com/he-il/news/other/update-1-space-pioneer-...

More vids are starting to show up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KD07C5wDpU

Impressive that the launch vehicle broke away from the static fire restraints so cleanly and evenly that it was a vertical launch. What were they holding it down with? Skipping rope?

Scheduling engine test at 9am on a Sunday, I thought leaf blowers were bad.

Even if we accept that it wasn't supposed to launch (which is a big 'if'), why was it not fitted with a destructive abort/ Flight Termination System?

They don’t use an FTS on many launches. It’s caused problems before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38783870

IMO their space program is very cavalier. This was apparently a secret facility near a residential area so they should have at least been distributing safety and emergency information. Not even telling the people living next to it that the facility exists is inexcusable.

This is not a secret facility. It's a test facility, not a launch site, i.e. there's public news on activities at facility when searching 河南巩义市综合试验中心 [0]. Catastrophic failure made it one, but that's like people saying they don't know XYZ industrial complex was located out side of town until it explodes spectacularly.

Tianlong3 actual launches is anticipated to happen at Wenchang Commerical in coastal Hainan, a cordoned off space port like Kennedy [1]. I would say (relatively) commercial players like Space Pioneer less cavalier than the national space program because bad optics can kill them.

[0] http://www.ha.news.cn/20240108/ec69118ca90245dda0213e92436d1...

[1] https://archive.ph/sUk8i#selection-458.0-486.0

> This was apparently a secret facility near a residential area

How 'secret' can an engine test stand be when the sound level produced by those things is enough to kill at short range while producing thick clouds of noxious fumes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianlong-3

Reply on news.ycombinator.com