Despite earlier reports to the contrary by Chinese “experts”, the launch of Tiangong I has been delayed pending a full review of the cause of the failure of the Long March-2C (CZ-2C) launch vehicle earlier this month.
According to a spokesperson from China’s Manned Space Engineering Office, the CZ-2C launch vehicle that failed during flight on August 18 and the CZ-2F launcher that will be used to launch the Tiangong I “are of the same rocket series” and “the investigation into the failure is currently underway.”
The spokesperson added that it is “unclear” if cause of the CZ-2C failure could impact the CZ-2F.