On 10 November 2025, Galactic Energy's Ceres-1 (Gushenxing-1) solid-fuel rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 12:02 pm China Standard Time carrying three satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit. The first, second and third stages operated normally and stage separations proceeded as planned.
The fourth stage ignited and burned for roughly 510 seconds before shutting down prematurely. The premature shutdown prevented the payload from reaching its intended orbit, and all three satellites were lost.
It was the vehicle's 22nd flight and only its second failure. Galactic Energy was China's most frequent private launch operator, with around 20 successful launches and some 85 satellites placed in orbit for 27 commercial customers, and the first Chinese private firm to achieve consecutive orbital successes.
The company apologised to the mission's customer and said it would determine the fault, complete a failure analysis and prepare for reflight, pledging to optimize rocket design and quality-management systems.
The upper stage stopped burning 510 seconds in, so three satellites never reached orbit; the company apologized and pledged to fix quality management.
An early fourth-stage shutdown on a solid rocket meant the upper stage did not complete its burn, so the payload never reached orbit
The company had built a streak of consecutive successes that made a single engine anomaly cost three satellites
A quality-management gap in a key commercial vehicle, not a design-forcing event, ended the run and damaged the launch record
The public apology and reflight pledge came after the loss, when the customer's satellites were already gone
A long run of launch successes does not make the next one safer — quality control is what carries the streak.
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