The Long March rocket family (Chinese: 长征运载火箭, romanized: Cháng Zhēng yùnzài huǒjiàn, lit. 'Long March launch vehicles') is a family of expendable and reusable carrier rockets operated by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The rockets are named after the Chinese Red Army's 1934–35 Long March military retreat during the Chinese Civil War. The Long March series has performed more than 600 launches, the third most among active rocket families, to low Earth orbit, Sun-synchronous orbit, geostationary transfer orbit, trans-lunar, and trans-Mars injection. The Long March 2F is a human-rated vehicle which launches the Shenzhou craft. The Long March 5 has the greatest payload, at 25,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit, placing it in the heavy-lift launch vehicle class. It has launched the Tianwen-1 Mars probe and the Chang'e 6 and Chang'e 5 Moon probes. The Long March 10 is undergoing development and component testing as a launch vehicle for the Mengzhou and Lanyue crewed lunar vehicles. The new-generation carrier rockets, Long March 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 use a liquid oxygen with a liquid hydrogen or kerosene fuel, while the older Long March 2, 3, and 4 use the hypergolic mixture of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide. The early rockets in the family were derived from China's Dongfeng program of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. From 1988 to 1998, Long March rockets launched US commercial satellites, however failures carrying Apstar 2 and Intelsat 708 caused controversy in the US, resulting in such launches being prohibited under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Long March rockets typically launch commercial satellites from Xichang and Wenchang launch sites, military-related satellites and crewed craft from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and Sun-synchronous satellties from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.
History
China used the Long March 1 rocket to launch its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1 (lit. "The East is Red 1"), into low Earth orbit on 24 April 1970, becoming the fifth nation to achieve independent launch capability. Early launches had an inconsistent record, focusing on the launching of Chinese satellites. The Long March 1 was quickly replaced by the Long March 2 family of launchers.
Origins The Long March 1 rocket is derived from earlier Chinese 2-stage Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) DF-4, or Dong Feng 4 missile, and the Long March 2, Long March 3, Long March 4 rocket families are derivatives of the Chinese 2-stage Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) DF-5, or Dong Feng 5 missile. However, like its counterparts in both the United States and in Russia, the differing needs of space rockets and strategic missiles have caused the development of space rockets and missiles to diverge. The main goal of a launch vehicle is to maximize payload, while for strategic missiles increased throw weight is much less important than the ability to launch quickly and to survive a first strike. This divergence has become clear in the next generation of Long March rockets, which use cryogenic propellants in sharp contrast to the next generation of strategic missiles, which are mobile and solid fuelled. The next generation of Long March rocket, Long March 5 rocket family, is a brand new design, while Long March 6 and Long March 7 can be seen as derivations because they use the liquid rocket booster design of Long March 5 to build small-to-mid capacity launch vehicles.
Entry into commercial launch market
After the U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed in 1986, a growing commercial backlog gave China the chance to enter the international launch market. In September 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan agreed to allow U.S. satellites to be launched on Chinese rockets. Reagan's satellite export policy would continue to 1998, through Bush and Clinton administrations, with 20 or more approvals. AsiaSat 1, which had originally been launched by the Space Shuttle and retrieved by another Space Shuttle after a failure, was launched by a Long March 3 in 1990 as the first foreign payload on a Chinese rocket. However, major setbacks occurred in 1992–1996. The Long March 2E was designed with a defective payload fairing, which collapsed when faced with the rocket's excessive vibration. After just seven launches, the Long March 2E destroyed the Optus B2 and Apstar 2 satellites and damaged AsiaSat 2. The Long March 3B also experienced a catastrophic failure in 1996, veering off course shortly after liftoff and crashing into a nearby village. At least 6 people were killed on the ground, and the Intelsat 708 satellite was also destroyed. A Long March 3 also experienced a partial failure in August 1996 during the launch of Chinasat-7. Six Long March rockets (Chang Zheng 2C/SD) launched 12 Iridium satellites, about a sixth of Iridium satellites in the original fleet.
United States embargo on Chinese launches
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
