Chinese rocket static-fire test results in unintended launch and explosion

spacenews.com

34 points·diamondyuan··6 comments

I never understood why Chinese testing sites were always situated so close to semi-urban areas.

You never see similar videos in India despite also having spaceports near small towns and villages, and also having failures.

Ik China has hesitancy around Coastal launches but Ningxia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai, etc are all much less dense than Guangxi or Henan

(Edit: never mind - forgot that USSR-PRC relations were extremely bad, and all those regions were within signals capturing range of the USSR)

To be fair, China is testing new designs far more often than India, so that alone increases the chances of seeing accidents. But also, India isn't afraid of building near the coast.

True, and I mentioned that. But there's no reason for China to not consider building in much sparser Gansu, Ningxia, etc now that the USSR hasn't existed for 30+ years.

Where does China’s unwillingness to launch east over the Pacific come from? Leftover Cold War paranoia of the Soviet Navy?

Worries about the US, and the fact that launch stations on the Pacific are very visible to US and US allies.

Lots more videos here if you enjoy watching the same thing blow up from different angles... which who the fuck doesn't -

https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=231522type%3D1%26t%3D1...

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