China's new carrier rocket fails in maiden flight

The first of China's new medium-sized carrier rocket Long March-7A suffered a failure, official media reported on Tuesday.

The rocket blasted off at 9:34 p.m. Beijing Time on Monday from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the coast of China's Hainan province, but a malfunction occurred later, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Chinese space engineers will investigate the cause of the failure, it said.

With plans to reach Mars and set up its own space station, China is developing new generation medium launch vehicles including the Long March-6A, Long March-7A and Long March-8.

A test version of the Long March-5B, which has the largest carrying capacity to low-Earth orbit, has been produced and will be used to launch the modules of China's space station, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

China's heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Long March-9, is expected to make its maiden flight around 2030 and will support manned lunar exploration, deep space exploration and construction of a space-based solar power plant.

China joined the space club on April 24, 1970, when the Long March-1 carrier rocket launched the country's first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, into orbit. At that time, the carrying capacity of the Long March rocket was only 300 kg.

On November 3, 2016, China's current largest carrier rocket, the Long March-5, made its maiden flight, with its carrying capacity reaching 25 tonnes for low-Earth orbit and 14 tonnes for geosynchronous orbit.