Chinese Long March 3B rocket fails during launch of Indonesian satellite

It's the second Chinese rocket failure in a month

Chinese Long March 3B rocket fails during launch of Indonesian satellite pic.twitter.com/4XhTlQQZVR

— Asian Defence (@AsianDef) April 14, 2020

A Chinese rocket carrying a new communications satellite for Indonesia has failed to reach orbit in a launch gone awry, the second failure for China's space agency in less than a month, state media reported today (April 9).

The Long March 3B rocket lifted off today at 7:46 a.m. EDT (1146 GMT) from China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, where the local time was 7:46 p.m. on Thursday night, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The rocket was carrying the Palapa-N1, also known as the Nusantara Dua, a next-generation satellite for broadband and broadcast communications built for the Indonesian joint venture of Indosat Ooredoo and Pasifik Satelit Nusantara.

The first and second stages of the three-stage Long March 3B rocket appeared to perform well during the outset of Thursday's launch. But something went wrong with the third stage, raining debris back to Earth and destroying the Palapa-N1 satellite, Xinhua reported.