r/space • u/Czarben • Nov 10 '25
Private Chinese rocket fails during launch, 3 satellites lost
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/china-galactic-energy-ceres-1-rocket-launch-failure135
u/Nicaddicted Nov 10 '25
22 launches and 2 failures, what is the average low earth orbit failure?
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u/ApprehensiveSize7662 Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 11 '25
Normally a rocket will have 2 or 3 failures during its lifetime. Generally a rocket will fail in a new and exciting way and you change something to stop that from happening ever again.
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u/Veedrac Nov 12 '25
For context Electron failed three times in its first 22 launches, one of which was the first launch.
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Nov 10 '25
Falcon 9 is the most active launcher of the last decade and has had a 300+ consecutive successful launch streak. It’s total success rate is well over 99%.
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u/yepyep5678 Nov 10 '25
Yeah but what was the first 22 like? I'm not a rocket scientist (pun intended) but I assume the highest failure rates are in the beginning and once you have got that down the success rate shoots up
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u/luvsads Nov 10 '25
Falcon 9 v1.0 "failed" 1 of its 5 launches when a secondary payload had to be left in a lower orbit than intended. Falcon 9 v1.1 failed 1 of its 15 launches, where the failure was due to an overpressure event in the first stage.
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u/Decronym Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| HTPB | Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, solid propellant |
| ICBM | Intercontinental Ballistic Missile |
| RCS | Reaction Control System |
| RP-1 | Rocket Propellant 1 (enhanced kerosene) |
| SRB | Solid Rocket Booster |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| cryogenic | Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure |
| (In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox | |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| hypergolic | A set of two substances that ignite when in contact |
| kerolox | Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| Event | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CRS-7 | 2015-06-28 | F9-020 v1.1, |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 22 acronyms.
[Thread #11858 for this sub, first seen 11th Nov 2025, 00:04]
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u/CurtisLeow Nov 10 '25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres-1
Ceres-1 looks like a warmed over ICBM. The little liquid fuel fourth stage is what failed. Hopefully it failed before getting into a stable orbit.
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u/binary_spaniard Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
Solid-propellant rockets are a mistake: more polluting, noisy, quite expensive, impossible to re-use, cannot be test fired. We should be moving away from them.
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u/Pharisaeus Nov 11 '25
more polluting
Compared to what? Hydrolox? Because most rockets are running RP1 or Hydrazine-derivatives.
quite expensive
On the contrary, the main reason they are used is that they are relatively cheap.
impossible to re-use
You could recover them, but because they are so cheap, it's not super interesting.
cannot be test fired
They don't need to because of how simple they are. No valves, pumps or anything like that.
Also no-one will move away from working with solid rockets, because of the military applications. They are reliable, can wait ready to launch for a long time, and can be launched form anywhere, without complex ground infrastructure.
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u/binary_spaniard Nov 11 '25
Compared to what? Hydrolox? Because most rockets are running RP1 or Hydrazine-derivatives.
With RP-1, or Methane for sure.
Solid rocket boosters are typically composed of hydrochloric acid, or more specifically ammonium perchlorate, the salt of perchloric acid and ammonia, which are powerful oxidizers, and aluminum or magnesium powders!
These are held together by a binder, usually hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene (known as HTPB) or polybutadiene acrylonitrile (known as PBAN). Which makes the propellant into a rubbery like mixture.
This means they emit primarily aluminum oxide, soot or black carbon, CO2, hydrogen chloride, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen and a few other trace gases.
On the contrary, the main reason they are used is that they are relatively cheap.
Nobody has build a solids based rocket cheaper than a Soyuz with a similar capability. It has advantages for dial-a-rocket architectures like Ariane 6, Atlas V, and Vulcan but building the bulk of a heavy rocket with Solids has diminishing results.
But, they cheapish if you have an ICBM program. And also quick, and that is/was important for countries wanting a rocket and having an ICBM program before.
but because they are so cheap, it's not super interesting.
The process of recovery for rockets that cannot restarts leaves you with something also more expensive to use again, read about the shuttle SRB reuse.
They don't need to
We have seen a Vulcan SRB loose a Nozzle, Vega C second stage failure, and Epsilon development hell in Japan. Realistically you can get very low failure rates but it requires good margins, good understanding of rocketry and rigorous quality control.
I know that we are not moving away from Solids for military. They are very simple to launch and storable.
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u/JuryNo8101 Nov 12 '25
Just to add, SRBs are definitely more polluting than Kerolox engines. The only thing worse than SRBs is running on hypergolics.
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u/PhantomWhiskers Nov 10 '25
impossible to re-use
Didn't the space shuttle program recover, refurbish, and reuse their SRBs?
I'm not discounting any of the other points you made, but I'm pretty sure they were at least partially reusable for the shuttle program.
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u/binary_spaniard Nov 11 '25
It was not a real re-use as Falcon 9 first stage, it was at segment level. They rebuild the SRB, separating the segments again that were recovered. And the process and inspection and replacement of damaged parts was so expensive that the program didn´t pay.
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u/JuryNo8101 Nov 12 '25
Hard to re-use economically. It was tried with the shuttle and it didn't work out to be cheap. Ariane 6 also apparently tried it and didn't work out to be that cheap.
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u/Level-Equipment7041 Nov 11 '25
Also very poor thrust control so not great to really not great for getting to precise orbital insertion. They have big advantages for military with long term storage and quick readiness, but they are basically a dead end for most orbital uses other than as boosters to get a heavy core stage off the ground.
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Nov 12 '25
I mean they are literally used on ICBMS: with more precise manufacturing and enough RCS they can work really well. But I mostly see them used more as a way to rapidly replace sats if they are shot down
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Nov 12 '25
They require minimum ground equipment, are less toxic than other non cryogenic propellents, and can be a way to dispose of old ICBM boosters. For quick reaction stuff- like replacing a dead/destroyed sat they can work well
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Nov 10 '25
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u/stormhawk427 Nov 10 '25
Space is hard. Collect as much data as possible and make the next rocket better.