The announcement issued by Xinhua News Agency late on August 10th said that at 8:02 PM on the same day, China launched the ChinaSat-4B satellite from the Wenchang Satellite Launching Center, Hainan province, using the Changzheng-7A missile. The missile encountered an incident during flight, causing the mission to fail. The specific cause is currently being further analyzed and investigated.
Before there was official confirmation from China, the US newspaper SpaceNews quoted images recorded by people about the Truong Chinh - 7A missile exploding less than 90 seconds after leaving the launcher.
It is not yet clear whether the explosion was due to a technical problem or due to the self-destructing system (flight termination system) being activated.
The Truong Chinh-7A missile made its first flight in March 2020, but this mission also ended in an explosion. Since then, the missile has proven its reliability through a series of successful flights, most recently on the evening of July 29 successfully putting the Tianlian-301 satellite into orbit.
The Truong Chinh-7A rocket launcher is developed by the China Institute of Rocket Propulsion Technology (CALT) under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), based on the Truong Chinh-7 rocket platform.
This is a new generation medium-sized liquid-fuel rocket for operations in high orbits, with a length of 60.13m, a launch weight of about 573 tons and the ability to carry a load of at least 7 tons to geostationary transit orbit (GTO).
Truong Chinh-7A has helped fill the gap in China's launch capacity for a payload range of 5.5 to 7 tons in high-orbit missions. This missile is capable of carrying 1-2 satellites in each launch.
In 2026, the Truong Chinh-7A missile entered the high-frequency and regular launch phase. The mission on July 29 marked the third flight of this missile line this year.
