China’s Long March 7A rocket explodes after lift-off

BREAKING: China's Long March 7A rocket exploded shortly after lifting off from the Wenchang launch site in Hainan, destroying the satellite it was carrying.

A Chinese rocket just blew up minutes after leaving the pad.

The Long March 7A lifted off from Wenchang, on Hainan island — China's showcase coastal spaceport — and didn't make it. Look at this: that orange glow lighting up the night sky is the moment things went wrong. The satellite it was carrying is gone with it.

Beijing hasn't said much yet, and that's the part I'm watching. China flies more rockets than almost anyone — the 7A is a workhorse for their bigger satellites — so a failure like this isn't just one bad night, it's a question mark over the whole schedule. Failures ground families of rockets while engineers hunt the fault, and China hates gaps in its launch calendar.

So here's my line: China gets another orbital launch off the ground within two weeks of this failure.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.

Source Read the original reporting at aljazeera.com