Chinese rocket stage appears to have crashed near school during Gaofen 11 satellite launch


The Chinese Long March 4B rocket successfully launched a new Earth-watching satellite on Monday (September 7), but missed a school in the first phase of the booster when it crashed back to Earth, witness videos show.

The Long March 4B rocket took off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China at 1:57 pm local time (1:57 am EDT, 0557 GMT). It has a powerful Gaofen 11 (02) Earth observation satellite, which is an optical Observation satellite High-resolution images are capable of reversing, showing features smaller than 3 feet (1 meter) around.

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The Chinese Long March 4B rocket will launch the Gaufen 11 (02) Earth observation satellite from the Taiyun Satellite Law Center on September 7, 2020. (Image Credit: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.)

The data returned by the Gaofen satellite will be used primarily for land surveying, city planning, land rights confirmation, road network design, crop yield estimates and disaster mitigation and mitigation, Chinese media reported.