Long March

The Long March family began on 24 April 1970, when a Long March 1 rocket placed China's first satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1 ("The East Is Red"), into orbit. This made China the fifth nation able to launch its own satellite on its own rocket. The first rockets were derived from ballistic missiles, but the family grew quickly: ever more powerful Long March 2, 3 and 4 versions were added for different types of orbit. A major generational leap came in 2016 with the heavy-lift Long March 5. In all, the family has made more than 500 launches and ranks among the most frequently used rocket families in the world.

The most famous crewed variant is the human-rated Long March 2F (CZ-2F) — China's only launch vehicle certified for crewed flight. It first flew in 1999 with the uncrewed Shenzhou 1, and on 15 October 2003 it launched China's very first crewed mission, Shenzhou 5 with the astronaut Yang Liwei, from the Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert. China thus became, after the Soviet Union and the United States, the third nation able to send a human into space on its own. For crew safety the CZ-2F also has a launch-escape tower on top, which in the event of an accident would pull the crew ship away from the rocket. The same rocket today carries crews to China's Tiangong space station.

The most powerful member of the family is the heavy-lift Long March 5 (CZ-5), China's most capable launch vehicle. It first launched on 3 November 2016 from the coastal Wenchang spaceport, and in the CZ-5B version it can carry about 25 tonnes to low Earth orbit. Its second flight on 2 July 2017 ended in failure because of an engine fault; after a two-year pause the rocket returned to service with a successful launch on 27 December 2019. It was the Long March 5 that then enabled China's most demanding missions: the Tianwen-1 probe to Mars, the Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6 lunar sample returns, and the launch of the modules of the Tiangong space station. For telecommunications satellites bound for high orbits, the reliable Long March 3B rocket carries about 5.5 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit and also launches satellites of the Beidou navigation system.

Long March rockets launch from four Chinese spaceports. The oldest is Jiuquan in the inland Gobi Desert, from which the crewed Shenzhou ships depart. The Xichang and Taiyuan spaceports serve satellites bound for various orbits. The newest is the coastal Wenchang on the tropical island of Hainan, which entered service in June 2016. Its location near the equator increases the rockets' payload capacity, and thanks to sea access even the largest rockets with a five-metre diameter, such as the Long March 5, can be delivered there by water — they would not fit through the inland rail network.

Today the Long March rockets are the foundation of the Chinese space programme across all of its areas. They carry crews and cargo ships to the Tiangong space station, whose core module Tianhe was launched by a Long March 5B on 29 April 2021. They launch probes to the Moon and Mars, build the Beidou navigation system and a network of observation and telecommunications satellites. Alongside them China is developing new launchers, including partially reusable rockets, but the Long March family remains its main workhorse — after more than half a century it is one of the most frequently launched rocket families in the world.