China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation”s dominant house contractor, carried out the debut flight of its Long March 12B service rocket on Monday afternoon.
According to the State-owned conglomerate, generally abbreviated as CASC, the 24-story-tall rocket blasted off at 4:40 pm from a newly constructed service tower on the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center within the Inner Mongolia autonomous area.
After a brief flight, the rocket efficiently entered its preset orbit and deployed its payloads — the tenth batch of Spacesail Constellation communication satellites.
The launch marked China’s thirty seventh house mission this 12 months and the 647th flight of the Long March rocket household.
Designed and constructed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Commercial Launch Vehicle Group, a CASC subsidiary primarily based in Shanghai, the brand new rocket stands about 72 meters tall and 4.37 meters in diameter, and contains a two-stage configuration.
Powered by 10 YF-102 collection engines fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene, the Long March 12B can generate a liftoff thrust of about 800 metric tons and carry not less than 20 tons of payloads into low-Earth orbit. It is at the moment China’s most powerful single-body rocket.
Research and growth of the brand new rocket started in September 2024. Its design was permitted in March 2025, after which engineers began constructing a prototype.
Liang Yanqian, a rocket designer on the China Aerospace Science and Technology Commercial Launch Vehicle Group, stated engineers adopted a number of revolutionary applied sciences, together with high-performance pintle thrust chambers and light-weight turbopumps. These elements type a extremely compact propulsion system that contributes to the rocket’s excellent total efficiency, he stated.
Engineers additionally lowered the rocket’s weight by a streamlined design. In addition, they adopted an environment friendly propellant administration scheme, built-in aft sections and large-diameter gas tanks to enhance flight effectivity, in line with Liang.
He added that the rocket’s flight-control software program can autonomously detect and reply to in-flight malfunctions, serving to guarantee a excessive mission success fee.
In the close to future, engineers will conduct flight assessments geared toward recovering the rocket’s first-stage booster. If profitable, a reusable model of the Long March 12B will enter service, Liang stated.
Following Monday’s launch, greater than 160 satellites have been despatched into house for the Spacesail Constellation.
Previously generally known as the G60 community, the Spacesail Constellation is designed to offer high-speed, safe and dependable broadband web providers worldwide. According to Spacesail, the community is anticipated to comprise greater than 10,000 satellites working in low-Earth orbit by the tip of 2030.
Experts stated that in contrast with satellites working in greater orbits, low-Earth-orbit satellites provide decrease latency and broader protection, significantly in plateau areas, making them higher fitted to space-based web networks.