Nov. 10 (UPI) — A rocket by a private Chinese company saw its second failure on its planned orbital mission.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the 62-foot-tall Ceres-1 Y-19 rocket by Chinese space firm Galactic Energy took off from northwest China at around 11:02 p.m. EST via Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.<\/p>\n
The mission carried two satellites for China’s Jilin-1 commercial Earth-observation constellation, and a craft developed by Zhongbei University intended for deployment in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
“We offer our sincerest apologies to the mission’s customer and to everyone who supports Galactic Energy,” said the Beijing<\/a>-based company in a statement.<\/p>\n It’s first three stages and separations operated as planned.<\/p>\n But the rocket’s fourth stage ignited then burned for over 500 seconds before a premature shutdown prevented China’s satellites from reaching orbit.<\/p>\n The Ceres-1 rocket made its debut November 2020 and was the second reported failure in 22 missions for Ceres-1.<\/p>\n Galactic, which is one of China’s top private launch companies, completed around 22 successful launches with some 85<\/a> satellites sent into space for 27 commercial clients.<\/p>\n