Long March 7A rocket explodes shortly after Wenchang liftoff

A Long March 7A rocket broke apart in a fireball about 85 seconds after lifting off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on August 10, during the joint burn of its first stage and four boosters. Xinhua confirmed the failure roughly three hours later, saying the rocket suffered a flight anomaly under investigation; the payload, reported as the Zhongxing-4B communications satellite, was lost with the rocket over the South China Sea in China's fourth orbital launch failure of 2026.