Drone captures spectacular Chinese rocket crash

China’s answer to SpaceX’s vertically landing rocket is off the ground. That was the easy part. The hard part was landing, and that almost, but not quite, is there too. The Deep Blue Aerospace Nebula -1 launched on its first ‘hop test’ on Sunday – a high-altitude flight, and an attempted landing back on the launchpad. The flight was captured by a slickly piloted drone, which showed Nebula-1 reaching a height of 5,000 meters before attempting to return back to the launchpad for recovery. It only got a few meters away, before botching the landing. The engines appeared to cut off too early, leading to the rocket slamming into the pad and exploding in an impressive fireball.

The damage was, surprisingly, not catastrophic, with much of the upper stages of the rocket appearing only partially damaged. Despite Deep Blue Aerospace describing the test as ‘not completely successful,’ the release of the video suggests the Chinese startup is following the technological roadmap, and marketing, of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, not being afraid to show failed attempts if it otherwise demonstrates progress. After all, this stuff is hard. In fact, it is rocket science.

Deep Blue Aerospace is planning another test launch in November.