Technology

59201 readers

2880 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

382

Chinese space firm unintentionally launches its new rocket (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 months ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

74 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand "due to a structural failure."

Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yet those don’t have cities right next to the blast zone

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Cape Canaveral is directly east of Orlando, with a bunch of vacation resort spots hugging the shore. The Florida coastline isn't exactly lightly developed.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

From Apple Maps, it looks like it’s on a mostly undeveloped island, with the nearest town, Cape Canaveral, over ten miles away. I can’t tell how far away Orlando is, but much further.

Compared to this Chinese test site, it looks like population centers are 5x - 10x farther, plus you have an entire ocean to blow stuff up

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -3 points 4 months ago

the nearest town, Cape Canaveral, over ten miles away

The Falcon 9 that made an uncontrolled reentry in March of 2021 spread debris from Washington to Oregon.

Chinese Long March rocket failures have dropped parts into Indian states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Ten miles isn't far for a vehicle moving 17,500 mph during the 12 minutes or so necessary to break Earth's gravity well.