Lto chinese company Beijing Tianbing Technology, also known as Space Pioneerhas announced that it has suffered an unexpected accident during one of his last static tests, according to the Reuters agency. As reported, the launcher Tianlong-3 has been propelled out of control while carrying out the aforementioned testimpacting a few seconds later on a mountainous area in the vicinity of the city of Gongyilocated in the center of the country.
The accident would have been caused by a structural problem and, despite the striking images of the incident that quickly went viral on social networks, no injuries have been reported, as reported by the company itself through its profile on the WeChat social network. The alarms went off after parts of the rocket structure fell dispersed within the security zone that had been establisheda necessary measure in engine ignition tests to avoid further consequences in case of a possible accident. The company continues working on the investigation to clarify what happened.
A fire already extinguished
The main consequence of this accident, beyond the material damages for the aforementioned companyit was a small fire which occurred as a result of the impact, although as reported by the emergency service of the city of Gongyi, This was quickly put down and it is already extinct: “The fire was extinguished and no one was injured.“, point out.
On the other hand, as stated by Space Pioneer, the Tianlong-3 launcher is composed of two stages and the accident occurred in the first of them, despite the fact that the rocket initially performed a normal ignition during the test. However, after this detached from the test stand due to “a structural failure”landing approximately one and a half kilometers in the aforementioned mountainous area.
