{"id":63184,"date":"2026-07-24T12:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=6bc34930b409e03f1fd786c98f11ce1d"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:12:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:12:52","slug":"epic-photo-captures-lightning-striking-a-chinese-rocket-during-liftoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/07\/24\/epic-photo-captures-lightning-striking-a-chinese-rocket-during-liftoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning strike on Chinese rocket captured in epic launch photo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:2000px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img id=\"Q62EkQQajPiwbTFiuKFWTC\" name=\"GettyImages-2287394373\" alt=\"lightning strikes a rocket in the sky\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/Q62EkQQajPiwbTFiuKFWTC.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"1\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline expandable\"><a href='https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/Q62EkQQajPiwbTFiuKFWTC.jpg'  class='expand-button icon-expand-image icon' ><\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">A Long March-3B carrier rocket carrying the Tianlian II-06 satellite blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on July 23, 2026 in Xichang, Sichuan Province of China. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: Zhou Quan\/VCG via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Lightning struck a Chinese rocket shortly after liftoff this week, as seen in incredible video and photographs.<\/p><p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/china-long-march-3b-rocket-launch-failure.html\"><u>Long March-3B rocket<\/u><\/a> lifted off from China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Thursday (July 23) carrying a communications relay satellite destined for geostationary orbit. Some 30 seconds into flight, lightning struck the rocket, leading to awestruck cries from crowds gathered nearby to watch the launch.<\/p><p>Despite the strike, the rocket delivered the satellite to its intended orbit as planned, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacechina.com\/n25\/n2014789\/n2414549\/c4656973\/content.html\" ><u>according to<\/u><\/a> the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). The satellite will help relay communications to the nation's Tiangong Space Station and other crewed missions.<\/p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/oxKFyKSH.html\" id=\"oxKFyKSH\" title=\"Chinese Rocket Struck by Lightning... Still Reaches Orbit\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>This isn't the first time lightning has struck a rocket shortly after liftoff. A lightning bolt <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/apollo-12-lightning-strike-twice-launch-video.html\"><u>famously struck the Saturn V rocket<\/u><\/a> carrying NASA's Apollo 12 mission, the second to ever land astronauts on the moon. In fact, the rocket was struck <em>twice<\/em>. <\/p><p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/spaceflight.nasa.gov\/outreach\/SignificantIncidents\/assets\/analysis-of-apollo-12-lightning-incident.pdf\" ><u>a report<\/u><\/a> NASA issued after the mission, some non-essential instruments and sensors experienced \"permanent effects\" from the strikes. Nevertheless, the mission put astronauts Charles \"Pete\" Conrad, Alan Bean and Richard \"Dick\" Gordon on the moon as planned.<\/p><p>More recently, lightning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/russian-rocket-launch-lightning-strike.html\"><u>struck a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2019<\/u><\/a> shortly after it launched. Like in this most recent example, the vehicle was able to place its Glasnost communications satellite in orbit despite the strike.<\/p><div class=\"see-more see-more--clipped\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet hawk-ignore\" data-lang=\"en\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Une fus\u00e9e Longue Marche 3B vient de se prendre la foudre peu apr\u00e8s son d\u00e9collage de Xichang.Ce n'est pas la premi\u00e8re fus\u00e9e \u00e0 subir \u00e7a, la Saturn V et la Soyouz-2 ont \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi foudroy\u00e9es par exemple. Aucun \u00e9chec n'est li\u00e9 \u00e0 la foudre... pour l'instant.pic.twitter.com\/vrAqaGAnnC<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/2080299614150808021\">July 23, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><div class=\"see-more__filter\"><\/div><\/div><p>But not all rockets struck by lightning fare so well. In 1987, a bolt struck the United Launch Alliance Atlas\/Centaur-67 rocket, leading to a malfunction in one of the computers that guided the vehicle and \"ultimately causing the breakup of the vehicle,\" NASA wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/ntrs.nasa.gov\/citations\/19900024781\" ><u>report of the incident<\/u><\/a>. <\/p><p>The incident led to NASA developing strict Lightning Launch Commit Criteria (LLCC) to lower the risk of strikes by further defining weather conditions that would delay launches. \"Since Atlas\/Centaur-67 and the rigorous implementation of the LLCC, no other launch vehicles have intercepted or triggered lightning on launch in the United States,\" NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/standards.nasa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/standards\/NASA\/A\/0\/NASA-STD-4010A-Approved.pdf\" ><u>wrote in a technical paper<\/u><\/a> outlining the criteria.<\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lightning struck a Chinese Long March-3B rocket shortly after liftoff this week, but the launch still successfully placed its satellite payload in orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":634,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2799,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-launches-amp-spacecraft","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/634"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63289,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63184\/revisions\/63289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}