A Chinese rocket carrying a communications satellite failed in its launch, state media said, attributing the failure to a "flight anomaly" as reports and videos suggested the spacecraft had exploded in mid-air.
Beijing has ploughed billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years to achieve what President Xi Jinping calls the country's "space dream".
Monday's rare launch failure involved a Long March 7A carrier rocket, which lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China's southernmost province of Hainan at 8:02 pm (1202 GMT), state news agency Xinhua said.
An "anomaly" occurred when the rocket, which was carrying the Zhongxing-4B communications satellite, was in flight, Xinhua added.
The cause of the failure is under investigation, it said.
Singapore-based broadcaster Channel NewsAsia said in an Instagram post that the rocket had exploded and posted footage from the scene of awestruck crowds watching a fiery ball in the sky.
One video, posted a few hours after the launch by a social media profile located in Hainan, showed a rocket exploding into flames around 85 seconds after it blasted off, leaving behind a cloud of grey smoke as debris fell to the ground.
China successfully landed a reusable rocket for the first time in July, according to its space agency, marking a major step in its space ambitions and in reducing launch costs.
The country is aiming to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, a race in which the United States is also competing with its Artemis programme.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, commenting on a post about Monday's failed launch on X, said that "rockets are insanely hard".
Rockets are insanely hard. There is a reason for the idiomatic expression.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2026
I hope they have a speedy recovery.
"I hope they have a speedy recovery," he added.
A four-tonne piece of a SpaceX rocket was believed to have unintentionally crashed into the Moon on Wednesday, a collision expected to leave behind a lunar crater.
China's maiden launch of the Long March 7A from the Wenchang site in 2020 was also unsuccessful after "a malfunction occurred", Xinhua reported in March that year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
