Leaked chats and staff complaints reveal toxic dysfunction inside Chinese rocket startup Nayuta Space—with the CEO threatening to fire engineers who skipped mandatory weekend overtime on an 11-day streak. The staff allege chronic verbal abuse, table-slamming tantrums, and hemorrhaging nearly half the engineering team—including several chief designers—in under a year.
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The next Gravity-1 is getting ready for a sea launch
🚀 Liftoff at 02:54UTC July 22, ORIENSPACE's Gravity-1 Y4 launched 9 satellites from the East China Sea
SPACE-PIONEER just released the Tianlong-3 failure report, which probably hints another launch attempt soon.
The report: LOX vented during ascent was aspirated into the aft end, leading secondary combustion of the first stage turnbine exhaust, which caused damage to the base thermal protection skirt. Hot plume gases were ingested into the first-stage aft compartment and ignite an internal fire, ultimately leading to a flight anomaly.
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SPACE-PIONEER's highly anticipated Tianlong-3 rocket failed during its debut launch from Jiuquan hours ago.
Will Chang'e-7 be the last Chang'e mission?
Looks like Chang'e-8, related payloads, and possibly China's wider moon program, are undergoing changes. This follows a merger seeing China's human spaceflight agency, already in charge of crewed lunar efforts, take control of robotic Chang'e missions, formerly overseen by CNSA.
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Shenzhou-23 crew showing their garden in the China Space Station
Shenzhou-23 astronauts ZHU Yangzhu and ZHANG Zhiyuan completed a 5.5-hour EVA at 05:59UTC Aug 28. Main tasks were solar array maintenance and installation of debris shields
China launched International Cislunar CubeSat Constellation program at Tiandu, aiming to establish a constellation spanning the Earth-Moon system by 2030. This program seeks to provide the systematic, persistent situational awareness for deep-space environmental monitoring, Gamma-ray burst (GRB) detection, lunar resource prospecting et. al.
Photo: CAS's 3-sat constellation
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Tianwen-3 Mars Sample Return mission is on good track for launch in 2028, sampling in 2030 and return in 2031. The latest video shows the multi-site sampling by drone not gonna happen, only by robotic arm from the lander.
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China is sticking to its 2028 launch target for the Tianwen-3 Mars Sample Return mission, aiming to bring at least 500 grams of Martian samples back by 2031.
GALACTIC-ENERG's CEO reveals 2-3 orbital demonstrations of Pallas-1 are planned before first stage recovery attempt targeted for late 2027
Drone footage of Pallas-1 maiden launch
㊗️ Congratulations to GALACTIC-ENERGY! Pallas-1 made a successful debut
It remains genuinely baffling how reluctant official Chinese space agencies are to share information
Tianwen-2 arrived at Kamo'oalewa nearly two months ago, and no updates since. Thankfully, space exploration historian Phil Stooke uncovered a few more pics from CNSA from the first encounter in early July. Hopefully an update soon.
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Beihang University tested an Aluminum-ice powered sounding rocket, setting a new record of reaching 5,276m altitude.
Why it matters: Aluminum-Ice (ALICE) propellant burns nano-aluminum powder mixed with frozen water and both water ice and aluminum are abundant in lunar regolith
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OMG, the fifth breakup of Long March 6A/C upper stage
At 2:30 am UTC on 27 August 2026, LeoLabs detected a fragmentation of a Chinese Long March rocket body, CZ-6C (NORAD ID 100472). The object’s orbit was 396 km perigee and 482 km apogee.
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Shenzhou-23 astronauts ZHU Yangzhu and ZHANG Zhiyuan completed a 5.5-hour EVA at 05:59UTC Aug 28. Main tasks were solar array maintenance and installation of debris shields
DEEP-BLUE's Thunder-RS kerolox engine completed a 200s hot fire test
China tested two-way Earth-Moon laser communication between the DRO-A satellite and ground station
Kuaizhou-11 Y3 is being transported to Jiuquan for launch of Tianyi-51/52
The damaged Zhuque-3 Y2 booster was dismantled for return transport
Here's the official announcement from CMSA: Following a comprehensive assessment, we have determined that the Chang'e-7 mission does not meet launch conditions and cannot proceed during its scheduled window this year.
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100s hot fire test of DEEP-BLUE's Thunder-RS kerolox engine
