Fact Check: China’s ‘historic’ success in launching two rockets within 12 hours? Know the truth here
A video claiming to show China’s recent ‘historic’ rocket launches—two within 12 hours—is circulating on social media.
By - M Ramesh Naik
Claim:The video shows China successfully launching two rockets within 12 hours, being projected as a historic achievement.
Fact:The claim is false. The video is from 2013 and shows the failure of a Russian Proton-M rocket, not a Chinese rocket launch.
Hyderabad: China’s space programme encountered a setback on January 16, 2026, after two rocket launch missions failed within a span of around 12 hours. The incidents involved a Long March-3B rocket carrying a classified Shijian satellite and the maiden flight of private firm Galactic Energy’s Ceres-2 solid-fuel launcher, dealing a blow to both state-run and commercial space efforts.
Amid this, a video showing a rocket taking off from a launch pad into the sky is being widely shared on social media with the claim that it shows China’s recent achievement of launching two rockets within a span of 12 hours.
An X user shared the clip with the caption, “Space, and the most impressive thing is that both rockets were launched within just 12 hours! One has its own country, no time to spare from temples and mosques!” (Archive)
The post suggests that the visuals show a successful Chinese space mission.
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The viral video does not show a Chinese rocket launch. Instead, it is footage from July 2013, documenting the failure of a Russian Proton-M rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral clip led to a longer version of the same video posted on Facebook. The post explicitly described the footage as a failed launch of a Russian Proton-M rocket.
This 49-second-long video shows the rocket veering off course, turning to the ground and breaking apart as it falls.
Following this lead, keyword searches led NewsMeter to videos published by international news outlets, including The Telegraphand Euronews from 2013. These reports describe how the Proton-M rocket lost control shortly after liftoff and crashed, destroying the onboard satellites.
Matching visual evidence
A frame-by-frame comparison of the viral clip with archival footage from Euronews confirmed that both videos show the same incident.
Identical visual elements include the rocket’s unstable ascent, violent swaying shortly after liftoff, mid-air breakup, a massive explosion forming a fireball, thick black smoke plumes and scattered debris—hallmarks of the documented Proton-M crash.
The video being shared as evidence of China’s ‘historic’ rocket launches does not show the country’s space mission. It is old footage from 2013, showing the explosion of a Russian Proton-M rocket after launch.
