Failure to start the booster Long 5th generation in China on Saturday dealt a blow to ambitious space aspirations of the country.
China's largest rocket launched at 7:23 p.m. Eastern time, to clean the sky from the seaside launch center Wenchang on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. But after 40 minutes, the state news Agency Xinhua announced the failure without any details.
Rocket LM-5 is designed to carry up to 25 tons of payload into low orbit, which more than doubles the previous rising of the country.
According to the Professor of the naval war College, USA and an expert on the space program of China Joan Johnson-Freese, a bad start means a further delay for a series of planned Chinese space efforts, including its robotic lunar program. Earlier, China announced plans to land a robotic probe on the dark side of the moon at the end of this year and reach Mars in about 2020.
All future missions will depend on LM-5, and official representatives of the outer space, told reporters on Sunday that the last launch will help to improve the rocket design, including the possibility of sending a space station into orbit "in a year or two." Originally announced in 2001, the project LM-5 initially suffered a long delay due to funding problems and difficulties in the development of new technologies for the first Chinese launcher.
LM-5 debuted in November of last year.
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