Long March 7A Rocket Fails After Liftoff, Destroying Satellite

A Chinese Long March 7A rocket suffered a catastrophic failure shortly after liftoff on Monday evening, destroying the ChinaSat4B communications satellite and marking a rare setback for the nation's modern launch fleet. The vehicle broke apart in a fireball over the South China Sea approximately 85 to 90 seconds after launch from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island.

The rocket lifted off at 8:02 p.m. Beijing time (12:02 GMT) on August 10, 2026. Video footage and eyewitness accounts captured the vehicle exploding during its initial ascent. Chinese state media confirmed the loss, with the Xinhua news agency reporting that the rocket experienced an "anomaly during flight" and that both the launcher and its payload were destroyed. The cause of the failure is under investigation, and no preliminary findings have been released.

The Long March 7A is a medium-lift rocket designed to launch satellites to geostationary transfer orbit. Its maiden flight in March 2020 also ended in failure, but the rocket had since completed a string of successful missions, making this the first known failure since that initial setback. The loss of the ChinaSat4B satellite represents a blow to...