In March 1992, the Long March 2E rocket was set to complete its actual launch mission, and the launch was broadcast live on television, with 600 million people watching the grand event. However, a malfunction was triggered by a mere 0.1 milligram of excess aluminum debris, causing the eight engines to shut down after ignition.At first glance, the rocket still appeared to be standing upright, but upon inspection, it was discovered that the support points had shifted due to the ignition. Some were only a few millimeters from the edge, meaning that if it had shifted just a few more millimeters, this nearly 20-story-tall rocket, fully loaded with fuel, would have toppled onto the launch pad.The on-site personnel acted quickly, and the crisis was eventually averted. However, whether to categorize this launch as "aborted" or "failed" sparked an unprecedented debate. After all, no situation this perilous had ever been encountered in the history of commercial spaceflight. In the end, it was officially classified as an "abort," and not counted as a failure internationally.Nevertheless, the faulty rocket at the time had to be repaired and could not be reused immediately, but the launch of the Aussat B-1 satellite still needed to proceed. A new rocket had to be assembled within 100 days. This seemingly impossible task was once again completed on schedule. By the end of June 1992, the new rocket was ready, and in August, it successfully delivered Aussat into orbit. This dramatic story finally neared its conclusion, though there was still a final chapter to unfold.
After days and nights of fault analysis, testing, and replication, they finally identified the issue: in the rocket's control system, there was an excess piece of aluminum at the control point of the program distributor. When it melted, it caused a short circuit at the control contact point, leading to the premature closure of the oxidizer flow control valves in boosters I and III, which then triggered an automatic emergency shutdown of the engines.Excess debris has been a quality issue troubling aerospace engineers for decades. In this case, the aluminum fragment that caused the problem weighed only 0.15 milligrams.Experts believe that it was most likely introduced when a worker tightened the aluminum screw on the program distributor's outer casing. For the malfunction to occur, the fragment had to precisely contact the fourth contact point inside the distributor, which carried the highest current of the 10 contact points, and it had to happen at the exact moment the spring plate moved.