By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese commercial space company Galactic Energy said a launch mission for one of its Ceres-1 rockets failed on Monday, preventing it from delivering its payload of satellites to orbit.
Beijing-based Galactic Energy, one of China’s leading space firms, has stepped up the frequency of its Ceres-1 rocket launches in recent years with over a dozen successful missions since 2023.
However, the rocket that lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12:02 p.m. local time (0402 GMT) on Monday suffered an “abnormal engine shutdown” almost 10 minutes later.
The specific cause of the failure is being further investigated, the company said.
Three satellites the rocket was carrying did not reach their preset orbits as a result of the failed launch, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
“We will thoroughly learn from the lessons of this mission failure, continuously optimize our rocket design and quality management systems, and carry on advancing China’s commercial space exploration (sector) with more reliable performance and steadier progress,” the company said.
Galactic Energy logged a previous mishap in September 2023 that led to the loss of a Ceres-1 rocket and its payload, forcing it to apologise to its customers.
Monday’s failed launch comes at an important juncture for the company, which has benefited from growing investor interest in space.
Last month, Galactic Energy began the so-called tutoring process for a potential initial public offering in China.
That move came just weeks after it raised $337 million in a Series D funding round led by Chinese state-owned and private venture capital firms, surpassing its Series B and C funding rounds in 2021 and 2023.
Galactic Energy has raised almost 5 billion yuan ($702 million) since 2021, around ten times the amount it raised between 2018 and 2020, according to Chinese corporate records.
($1 = 7.1230 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Additional reporting by Ethan Wang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Joe Bavier)
