Overview
- Space Pioneer’s Tianlong-3, which lifted off at 12:17 a.m. Eastern on Friday from Jiuquan, suffered an ascent anomaly and its first mission failed.
- State news agency Xinhua confirmed the failure hours later, and Space Pioneer apologized, said the cause is under investigation, and did not disclose any payload status.
- Tianlong-3 was built to carry large batches of Qianfan internet satellites, and China has placed only 108 so far toward plans for many more in the next two years.
- The 72-meter, two-stage kerosene–liquid oxygen rocket uses nine Tianhuo-12 engines, targets partial reusability, and can lift about 17–22 tonnes to low Earth orbit.
- The failure is China’s third orbital loss of 2026 against a goal of about 140 launches this year, which could slow near-term constellation deployment.