By Jean Landemer, correspondent in space affairs, for Eurasia Business News – November 10, 2025. Article n°1894.
China’s private space company Galactic Energy experienced a launch failure with its Ceres-1 rocket on November 10. The solid-fuel Ceres-1 rocket successfully completed its first three stages after lifting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, but the fourth and final stage shut down prematurely about 510 seconds into the flight. This failure prevented the rocket from placing its three payload satellites into orbit, resulting in the loss of two satellites for China’s Jilin-1 commercial Earth-observation constellation and a satellite developed by Zhongbei University.
This was the second failure for the Ceres-1 rocket in 22 missions, the first being in September 2023. Galactic Energy apologized for the mission setback and is conducting a thorough investigation to identify the root cause of the anomaly. The company plans to continue optimizing rocket design and quality management to ensure more reliable performance in future launches. The failure may also delay other upcoming missions, including the debut flight of the more powerful Ceres-2 rocket.
Ceres-1 is a solid-propellant four-stage light-class rocket with a fairing diameter of 1.4 m, reaching 19 m in length. It is capable of launching up to 400 kg of payload into low Earth orbit.
Beijing is actively developing a national space program, developing meteorological, telecommunications and navigation satellites and technologies designed for the exploration of the Moon. With the support of the state, Chinese specialists are implementing projects to explore asteroids and Mars. The PRC space station operates in orbit, which is also intended for international cooperation. In 2024, China carried out 68 launches.
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© Copyright 2025 – Eurasia Business News. Article no. 1894
Eurasia Business News 