Space Pioneer a Year on From Its 'Static' Fire
The company has been slowly rebuilding its rocket plans and image.
In the year following its static fire incident, Space Pioneer has been slowly rehabilitated while moving toward a debut flight.
Last year on June 30th, Space Pioneer attempted to conduct a test firing of the first-stage for its Tianlong-3 launch vehicle1, equipped with nine TH-12 engines and fueled with rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen, at its Gonyi (巩义市) test facility2, in Henan (河南) province. Ahead of the test, the company worked with local authorities to establish an exclusion zone, temporarily relocating some locals, ensuring no one could approach the site.
Moments into the test firing, the nine engines generate 820 tons of thrust, on a stand designed to support 600 tons with rapidly draining propellant tanks, resulting in the stage breaking free from the stand. Once free, the first-stage flew about two kilometers up before crashing ~1,470 meters away, shattering some windows via a shockwave and luckily resulting in no casualties.
In the immediate aftermath of the unintended flight, the static fire stand and supporting facilities were demolished after local officials found that they had been modified for use with the rocket without an environmental impact assessment having been performed. This also resulted in the barring of a similar stand from being built at the test site in the future; however, individual engine testing resumed in November 2024.
Following that, around the end of the year, Space Pioneer gradually reappeared to the public. By February, the company had declared it would perform Tianlong-3's debut flight in June, followed by five more launches before the end of 2025.
Having passed by its target date without any commotion, it was shared in July that the first flight vehicle of Tianlong-3 was complete, with various fixes implemented (to hardware and company culture) following last year’s static fire campaign. Later the same month, the rocket’s dedicated launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center was ready. Meanwhile, the test campaign of the rocket had been resumed (more on that in a moment).
In good luck for Space Pioneer and Tianlong-3’s business case3, the company was awarded a contract to launch a batch of eighteen Qianfan satellites, with more and larger ones available in the future. Details within the launch contract stated that the launch providing company must be in good legal standing, not having violated the law in the last three years. From that detail, it can be concluded that Space Pioneer did not face a major legal crackdown at the state or provincial level following June 2024’s incident.
Alongside being legally clear to continue business, Space Pioneer is likely politically okay too now, with the company’s Chairman Kang Yonglai (康永来) attending a Provincial Party Committee meeting in Jiangsu (江苏) province on September 8th. At that meeting, Kang was reported to have put forward suggestions for the province to establish itself as a key hub for commercial space initiatives.
Looping back to the test campaign of Tianlong-3, Space Pioneer has been trying to fire up the first-stage again, as well as the second-stage for the first time. Those tests have gotten as far as fueling on floating platforms off the coast of Haiyang (海阳市)4, before being aborted for unknown reasons. In recent weeks, the first-stage has taken priority, being at sea for a while before returning, having not completed any firing.
It remains to be seen how long Space Pioneer will spend attempting to fire up the rocket’s stages before its debut flight from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center later this year.
Tianlong-3 is a two-stage liquid-fuelled partially reusable launch vehicle expected to be capable of carrying 17,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit.
About five kilometers away from the city it is named after.
Planned to support mega-constellation deployment efforts and provide a low-cost launch solution.
A small city of 658,000 people in Shandong (山东) province, facing south into the Yellow Sea.