The Chinese Nebula-1 rocket almost successfully landed after a test flight, but at the last moment it caught fire and capsized.

The first stage of the promising reusable Chinese launch vehicle Nebula-1, during a test on September 22, 2024, successfully climbed to a high altitude and was almost able to land, but crashed to the ground at the last moment. The entire flight was filmed from a drone, resulting in an epic video.

Image source: qq.com

The American SpaceX regularly launches reusable Falcon 9 rockets, which successfully land the first stages and provide significant cost savings. It is logical that other companies around the world are trying to replicate its success. One of them was the Chinese Deep Blue Aerospace from Jiangsu province. Last Sunday, September 22, 2024, the company carried out a test launch from the Ejin Banner Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia to test the operation of the Nebula-1 booster systems, as well as the ability of the first stage to return to earth after separation and perform a power-on landing.

The rocket is equipped with a Leiting-20 engine (“Thunder-20”), which runs on kerosene and liquid oxygen, and can develop a thrust of 20 tons. Nebula-1 has successfully passed tests with a rise to a height of less than 100 m and is now moving on to the next stage – flights to altitudes up to 100 km. The rocket’s final flight lasted 179 seconds and succeeded in achieving 10 of the 11 mission objectives. The last one, the 11th, was a landing that did not go according to plan.

During testing, Nebula-1 launched on all three engines, and when the rocket reached an unspecified maximum altitude, it switched to only the central engine. Next, Nebula-1 declined; the central engine reduced speed while hovering at the landing site, and then everything did not go as planned.

As a post-flight analysis showed, the rocket experienced a failure in the control system: it performed a landing maneuver and turned off the engine while still in the air. Nebula-1 crashed to Earth, but there was no explosion, probably because by that time most of the fuel had already been consumed. Deep Blue Aerospace said the test results will be used for the next flight in November.