Four Failed Attempts, 85 Seconds to Destruction: China’s 3.2 Billion Yuan Rocket Disaster

There is a memorable scene in the classic film To Live, adapted from Yu Hua’s novel. 

Fugui and Jiazhen’s deaf-mute daughter, Fengxia, is about to give birth, and the entire family eagerly awaits the arrival of the new baby. However, amid the political turmoil and fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution, all the hospital’s experienced and highly skilled obstetrics professors had been branded “reactionary academic authorities” and sent to the “cowshed” for detention. The delivery room was left entirely in the hands of a group of Red Guard students who had only recently rebelled at nursing school.

Joy turns into tragedy. Fengxia successfully gives birth to a baby boy, but then suffers acute postpartum hemorrhaging. The inexperienced Red Guards are helpless and stare at one another in confusion. Her husband, Erxi, hurriedly brings Professor Wang, the experienced obstetrician who is being held in the “cowshed,” back to the delivery room. But Professor Wang is so weak from starvation that he immediately devours the seven steamed buns Erxi gives him. He then drinks some water and chokes, losing consciousness on the spot. On the hospital bed, the young Fengxia dies in agony from massive blood loss.

Now, in 2026, upon seeing the much-anticipated launch site at Wenchang, Hainan, the Chinese have encountered a similar situation and were reminded once again of the young deaf-mute peasant woman who died in childbirth. We once thought such an absurd tragedy could never happen again. This time, however, it was not a deaf-mute woman who experienced a “difficult delivery,” but a rocket launch that had consumed more than 3 billion yuan in public funds, reported Creaders, a Chinese news website. 

At 8:02 p.m. on Aug. 10, 2026, at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan, a Long March 7A (Long March 7 Modified) heavy-lift rocket carrying the high-value ChinaSat-4B communications satellite roared into the sky. However, just about 85 seconds after liftoff, the rocket suddenly disintegrated in midair before the watching crowd, breaking into two enormous fireballs. The satellite and debris, engulfed in smoke, plunged toward the depths of the South China Sea. Contemporary reports confirm that the rocket experienced an in-flight anomaly and the mission failed; the exact cause remains under investigation, Xinhua reported. 

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Eighty-five seconds is roughly the point at which a rocket passes through Max-Q, the period when aerodynamic loads on the vehicle are at their greatest. The article notes that the Long March 7A has a diameter of only 3.35 meters and a length-to-diameter ratio exceeding 18, giving it a relatively slender profile that has sometimes prompted the nickname “chopstick rocket.”

More than three hours after the accident, Xinhua issued a brief statement of fewer than 100 Chinese characters. It did not use words such as “explosion” or “disintegration,” instead describing the event simply as “an in-flight anomaly” and stating that the launch mission had failed. Xinhua’s official report said that the cause was still being analyzed and investigated. 

State Chinese platforms, including China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, simply reproduced the announcement without providing technical details. It also alleges that videos of the explosion and breakup filmed by thousands of visitors on their mobile phones at Wenchang Beach were rapidly removed from mainland Chinese social-media platforms. Independent reports, however, confirm that amateur footage showing the rocket breaking apart about 85 seconds after liftoff circulated online before or alongside the official confirmation, according to Lainhe Zaobao, a Singaporean Chinese-language newspaper. 

Meanwhile, as officials were reportedly attempting to suppress evidence of the failure, a short video filmed at the scene circulated overseas. In the footage, as the fireball illuminated the night sky, a little girl watching the launch with her parents reportedly clapped and shouted, “It’s New Year! There are fireworks!”

The innocent remark appeared as a biting satire of the CCP’s image of China as a “space superpower.” It says that what looked like “fireworks” destroyed a satellite worth more than 3.2 billion yuan, and characterizes the incident as the fourth failed Chinese orbital launch of 2026. The latter claim is consistent with reports that this was China’s fourth launch failure of the year, reported NTD Chinese. 

Then, in the early hours of Aug. 11, only hours after the Wenchang explosion, Japan’s H3 rocket successfully completed its ninth launch. Japan had previously delayed a launch by nearly 200 days to investigate a tiny defect in carbon-fiber material and had openly shared testing data and technical details with the international aerospace community.

On one side is transparent, fact-based investigation guided by respect for science; on the other is a black-box operation aimed at covering up problems and maintaining an appearance of stability through deception. Under the vastness of the night sky, the gap between authoritarianism and civilization is starkly revealed.

The ‘political tribute’ that became a death knell

Spaceflight is a field of precise physics and engineering. Every screw and every millisecond of timing must obey unforgiving physical laws, leaving no room for political fervor. Yet China’s space program in 2026 has been burdened by heavy political constraints.

2026 marks the 99th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. At the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the CCP, for the first time, placed the goal of building a “strong space power” alongside becoming a “manufacturing power” and a “cyber power,” directly making it a hard KPI for evaluating officials’ career performance. More importantly, in early August, as the Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership gathered in Beidaihe, Xi Jinping urgently needed an impressive spaceflight success to showcase China’s aerospace achievements to senior party elders.

Driven by an intense desire to present “political tribute,” the entire space sector was pushed into an ultra-high-frequency launch schedule that allegedly violated scientific principles. The Long March 7A explosion occurred just 12 days after the previous launch of the same rocket type. Before the launch, Chinese officials reportedly even touted the unusually short interval as an “unprecedented achievement that broke historical records.”

The result was the exact opposite. The “political rocket” carrying hopes of winning praise instead disintegrated before the cameras of tens of thousands of people and under the gaze of the world, effectively handing the Beidaihe meeting a “blank paper” splattered with blood.

How the ‘Great Purge’ gutted China’s aerospace command center

If political pressure was the catalyst, then the devastating purge launched by the CCP against China’s military-industrial and aerospace systems over the past two years was the fundamental cause of the paralysis of its technological core. 

The breadth and depth of the purge are described as rare in the history of the CCP since it came to power. The CCP’s characteristics—deception, brutality and internal struggle—have never changed: everyone fights others, only to be targeted themselves in turn. This was the case during the Cultural Revolution, it says, and remains so today.

1. Wang Xiaojun: President of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) and the chief commander personally in charge of the Long March 7 launch vehicle. After the Long March 7’s failed maiden launch in 2022, he led his team through 360 days of rigorous “zeroing” investigations to identify and eliminate potential problems. Yet in early 2024, this accomplished technical commander was abruptly removed from his CPPCC position and dismissed, effectively eliminating a key technical authority.
2. Wu Yansheng: Chairman of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). He was removed from his position and placed under investigation at the end of 2023.
3. Yuan Jie: Chairman of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). He was removed from his position in April 2024 and has reportedly not been seen publicly since.
4. Liu Shiquan: Chairman of China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO Group) and formerly general manager of CASIC. He was also removed and subjected to an investigation.
5. Zhang Kejian: Director of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND). He was abruptly removed from his position in 2024 and had his CPPCC membership revoked in March 2026.
6. Zhang Jianhua: Deputy director of SASTIND. He surrendered to investigators in 2025 and was sentenced at first instance to 10 years in prison on Aug. 5, 2026—exactly five days before the Long March 7A explosion.
7. Bian Zhigang: After serving as deputy director of SASTIND for only two years, he was officially announced as having fallen under investigation in June 2026.
8. Ma Xingrui: Former general manager of CASC and director of the China National Space Administration. A member of the CCP’s 20th Central Politburo and a prominent representative of the “aerospace faction” at the highest levels of the party, he was placed under investigation in April 2026, formally expelled from the party in July and transferred to judicial authorities. The article portrays this as marking the complete political downfall of the aerospace faction at the center of power.

Aerospace is a discipline that depends heavily on accumulated engineering experience and the courage to make critical decisions on the ground. In the past, veteran technical officials such as Wang Xiaojun and Wu Yansheng had spent decades working in the field, giving them the kind of authority that could serve as a stabilizing force, as well as the technical responsibility to call off a launch when necessary. By contrast, the replacements brought in during the crisis had relatively limited experience, while morale within the system had deteriorated.

More dangerously, amid a climate of political fear in which everyone was worried about being branded a “remnant of the previous leadership,” suppliers could be replaced at a moment’s notice and quality-control and approval procedures became rigid and mechanical. At the critical moment of the launch countdown, no one dared take political responsibility for postponing the launch. Even when abnormal data were detected, they could only grit their teeth and proceed with the launch, “blindly igniting” the rocket.

The aerospace version of the tragedy in the film To Live, the experienced “Professor Wangs” had all been imprisoned or purged, leaving only trembling “Red Guards” in the delivery room. The rocket’s explosion in midair was, in this interpretation, the inevitable result of the necrosis of the entire technical nervous system. This is described as the CCP system’s vicious cycle.

The senior officials who were purged were not necessarily good people themselves. What is tragic, it argues, is that they had risen to power by purging others. Even more tragically, before they themselves were targeted, they believed they would be exceptions—only to discover that they, too, had become pawns of the CCP.

The domino effect of factional infighting in the military-industrial complex

Following the Long March 7A’s failure at Wenchang, the shockwaves allegedly spread rapidly throughout the entire aerospace industrial chain. In the early hours of Aug. 11, the launch of LandSpace’s ZQ-3 Yao-2 (Zhuque-3 Yao-2) rocket, which had been scheduled to take place at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, was abruptly halted despite airspace restrictions already having been issued. 

Meanwhile, the Chang’e-7 lunar exploration mission, originally scheduled to begin in late August, was reportedly forced to postpone its comprehensive review because its booster engine shares technology with the Long March 7 series. Thus a single explosion triggered a chain reaction that brought China’s entire aerospace industry to a standstill. Behind this lies deep-rooted factional infighting within the Chinese military.

In late June 2026, the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress simultaneously revoked the qualifications of six senior military officers as NPC deputies. An official announcement in August further confirmed that all six were suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law.”

Xu Xueqiang (Air Force General, former director of the Central Military Commission Equipment Development Department and commander-in-chief of China’s Manned Space Program);

Li Fengbiao (Army General, former political commissar of the Western Theater Command);

Guo Puxiao (Air Force General, former political commissar of the Air Force);

Wang Kangping (Air Force Lieutenant General, former commander of the Joint Logistics Support Force);

Zhang Minghua (Army Lieutenant General, former commander of the Cyberspace Force);

and Yin Hongxin (Army Lieutenant General, former political commissar of the Army of the Southern Theater Command).

These six senior officers, who oversaw weapons procurement, space program command, theater commands, and strategic military branches, were all described as trusted protégés carefully promoted after Miao Hua took charge of the CMC Political Work Department in 2017. Following the outbreak of the Rocket Force purge in 2023 and the downfall of Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, Zhang Youxia became embroiled in a life-and-death power struggle with two major factions within the military associated with Miao Hua and He Weidong. Once the anti-corruption campaign became completely transformed into factional purges and vendettas, military procurement, equipment quality, and acceptance testing of weapons systems all became bargaining chips in factional struggles.

When senior officials in the Equipment Development Department and commanders across the various theater commands were living under constant threat of dismissal, while leaders of major military-industrial enterprises were increasingly fearful for their own positions, who would still have the time or inclination to focus on quality-control investigations? Who would dare take responsibility for ensuring rocket safety?

The arrogance of totalitarianism will ultimately end in ruin

From the fanatical and absurd claims of “10,000 jin per mu” during the Great Leap Forward, to Fengxia’s tragic death in the delivery room during the Cultural Revolution, and now to the Long March 7A reduced to ashes in the Wenchang night sky in 2026,  the tragic pattern of totalitarian rule has remained unchanged:

When a regime places the monopoly of political power above scientific common sense, eliminates technical experts through loyalty-based political screening, and uses political performance targets to force objective laws to conform to political demands, systemic collapse becomes only a matter of time.

The “fourth difficult birth” of a rocket launch in 2026, not only shattered the political packaging surrounding Xi Jinping’s vaunted vision of a “strong space power,” but also laid bare before the world the weaknesses within the CCP’s military and defense-industrial systems: dysfunctional command structures, anxiety driven by factional infighting, and a pervasive unwillingness to take responsibility.