Kinetica-1 rocket destruction solved! | SAST VTVL test rocket fails! | Space News
Video from the channel Shah Cyrux about Kinetica 1, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 16:15. Language: German. Video type: News.
What's being announced
This episode of a German-language space news show focuses on the Chinese space sector. For Kinetica 1, the main news is the outcome of CAS Space's investigation into the 27 December failure. It was this solid-fuel launcher's sixth mission and its first failure. The first two stages worked normally, but about 3 seconds after the third stage ignited, attitude control was lost. According to telemetry, the voltage output of the thermal battery powering that stage failed. The battery had been internally damaged during a factory repair and could not withstand the flight's vibrations, so the third stage was destroyed.
Context
The episode also covers other topics: the test flight of a VTVL rocket by the state-owned company SAST, which hit the water abruptly instead of splashing down as planned; the development of the Long March 12A, a reusable version of the Long March 12 powered by methane engines; and the launch and recovery tower with arms being built by another Chinese company. It also mentions two launches on 23 January, one of a Long March 6A and another of a Long March 3B, and the funding round of a young Beijing-based company. It closes with a historical look back at the Apollo 14 mission.
What it means
According to CAS Space, the incident does not affect the Kinetica 1 launches planned for 2025, eight missions in total. The author sees it as a quality-control problem: it remains unclear how a damaged component ended up fitted on flight hardware.