China’s burgeoning private space sector suffered another blow last weekend when Galactic Energy’s Ceres-1 rocket failed to successfully deliver its payload into orbit. This marks the second failure for the company since it began commercial launches in 2020.
Liftoff occurred on Sunday, November 9th at around 11:02 p.m. EST from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The rocket initially performed as expected during its first three stages, but ultimately succumbed to a premature shutdown of its final stage. Consequently, all three satellites onboard – two for the Jilin-1 commercial Earth observation constellation and one experimental craft developed by Zhongbei University – were lost.
Galactic Energy swiftly issued an apology through Chinese media outlet Global Times, acknowledging the setback and promising to thoroughly investigate the incident. “We will draw lessons from the mission setback and continue to optimize rocket design and quality-management systems,” the company stated.
The Ceres-1 stands at approximately 62 feet tall and is designed to carry up to 880 pounds of payload into low Earth orbit. Its debut in November 2020 marked a milestone for Galactic Energy, quickly achieving nine consecutive successful missions before experiencing its first failure in September 2023. Following this initial setback, the rocket completed eleven more launches without incident prior to Sunday’s unfortunate event.
While setbacks are inevitable in any rapidly developing technological field like spaceflight, this recurring issue with the Ceres-1 raises questions about Galactic Energy’s quality control processes and reliability. The company faces increasing pressure to maintain a competitive edge against both established Chinese state-owned aerospace corporations like China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and other emerging private players in the global commercial launch market.
