China’s “Golden Rocket” Explodes After 16 Straight Launches — What Went Wrong? I China Insights
A Chinese Long March 7A rocket exploded just 85 seconds after launch on August 10, after completing 16 consecutive successful missions.The failure came at a particularly sensitive moment. Just weeks earlier, former Politburo member Ma Xingrui—one of the most prominent political figures to emerge from China’s aerospace establishment—had been expelled from the Communist Party.Why did a mature rocket suddenly fail? Why was China pushing to break its launch-interval record? And what does the accident reveal about the dramatic purge of China’s aerospace and military-industrial elite?In this…
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