Rocket Rocket: to meet new demand for more satellites

China’s biggest manu-facturer of carrier rockets will soon begin to develop the next-generation Long March 8 medium-lift carrier rocket to meet the demands of commercial launch ser-vice, according to a senior manager.

Li Tongyu, head of carrier rocket development at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told Chi-na Daily that the Long March 8 will have a modular design and will use engines that have been used by the Long March 5 and Long March 7, both new rockets developed by the academy.

“Its core stage will be based on those used by the Long March 7 and Long March 3A, and it will have two solid-propelled boosters that are 2 meters in diameter,” he said. “We will spend up to three years on its development and if everything goes well, its maiden flight will take place by the end of 2018.

”Long March 8 will be capable of sending a payload of about 4.5 metric tons to a sun-synchronous orbit, or 2.5 tons to geosynchronous transfer orbit, he said. In a sun-synchronous orbit, a satellite circles the Earth at the same rate that the Earth orbits the sun, whereas with a geosynchronous orbit, the satellite matches the rotation of the Earth.

Li said use of the Long March 8 will extensively reduce the launch costs of low- and middle-orbit satellites, giving it bright prospects in the commercial launch market. If research and development go well, the super-heavy rocket will carry out its fi rst flight around 2030, allow China to land astronauts on the moon and send and retrieve Mars probes.