Dramatic drone footage captures failed Chinese rocket landing

Facepalm: Chinese startups are attempting to emulate what SpaceX and Blue Origin achieved nearly a decade ago – the ability to land and reuse rockets. Although the road has been bumpy, at least one company has managed to document its failures with spectacular cinematography.

A re-entry "hop" test by Chinese rocket company Deep Blue Aerospace failed at the last second on Sunday, causing severe damage to the rocket and destroying its landing gear. The company quickly published a postmortem and shared impressive drone footage of the incident.

The two-minute clip captures the launch and attempted landing sequence from multiple angles as the drone circles the rocket, named Nebula-1. Everything appears to proceed smoothly until the engines deactivate too high above the ground, causing the rocket to crash into the center of the landing pad and explode at its base. Subsequent photos show that the main body remained mostly intact.

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