There were no casualties, but the gas that came out of the booster can cause serious health damage.
Long March 3B with a Yuanzheng-1 upper stage launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on December 26, successfully delivering two Beidou satellites into medium-Earth orbit (MEO). At the same time, a pair of lateral boosters landed directly on populated areas in the Guangxi region, according to videos posted on social media.
Heads up: it’s been a while, but this kind of falling booster action was a feature of the Long March 3B launches of Beidou satellites from Xichang. https://t.co/rRM0mQ2g0p https://t.co/UnFXaoGgC4 pic.twitter.com/7XkRCTFLaW
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) December 26, 2023
And someone’s house got a dose of sky-delivered hypergols https://t.co/owyNJEm70l pic.twitter.com/XsaNz42bvQ
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) December 26, 2023
One of the videos shows a booster falling in the forest and exploding, while the other shows the wreckage landing next to a residential building. The video shows reddish-brown smoke, indicating the presence of nitrogen tetraoxide, as well as yellowish gas, likely the result of asymmetric dimethyl hydrazine mixing with air. Both pose a serious health hazard.
This is just another of many cases of launch vehicles falling on houses during the launch of Beidou satellites. In 2019, the accelerator landed on a rural building.
China’s first three launch sites were established during the Cold War at locations inland to provide some protection amid tensions with the United States and the Soviet Union. At the same time, this currently leads to accelerators falling to the ground, not into the ocean, as in the case of European and American launches.
Areas under threat from falling debris should be notified of evacuation in advance. Also, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the country’s main space contractor and manufacturer of Long March rockets, is trying to limit the fall with grids or parachutes. However, it is unclear whether these tools were used during the current mission.
Beidou is a Chinese global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that currently has 36 active satellites.
This was the 65th launch for China in 2023, one more than last year.
