Strapped to a Long March-4B rocket, the CBERS-4 satellite launched Sunday, marking China's 200th venture into space.
The fourth installment in the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program, CBERS-4 blasted off from launch center in Taiyuan located in the Shanxi province north of China. Like the others in the program, the satellite will be used in improving land management, agriculture, water conservation, forestry and other environmental protection efforts.
The first successful launch of a Chinese satellite was on April 24, 1970, with the Dongfanghong-1 hurtling into space on a Long March-1 rocket. The 100th launch was on June 1, 2007, with a Long March-3A rocket taking a communications satellite into space. The 199th mission concluded last month when the remote-sensing satellite Yaogan-24 was placed into orbit by a Long March-2D rocket.
According to Lei Fanpei, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation's (CASC) chairman, rockets from the Long March family will be part of at least 100 more launches within the next seven years. CASC is the main contractor for the CBERS program, with the program's rockets developed and produced by CASC subsidiary, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
Safety and carrying capacity depend on rockets, so China's space program put a premium on developing dependable boosters. At the moment, however, the country's best rockets are still far behind what Russia, the United States and other European countries are capable of. Where low Earth-orbit satellites from these nations can carry payloads of at least 18 tons, China's current rockets can only accommodate less than half that capacity.
For Fanpei, the Long March-5 will offer the kind of breakthrough China is looking for in large-thrust rockets. Taking advantage of a non-polluting propellant, it will be able to carry payloads of nearly 23 tons for low-Earth orbits and almost 13 tons for geostational transfer orbits. With this boost in capacity, Long March-5 rockets can offer serious competition against the Delta-4H rockets the United States uses. The rocket is expected to go on its first launch within two years, likely lifting off from a new launch site in the Hainan Province.
With a manned moon landing part of China's plans, the country's scientists are hard at work developing a heavy carrier rocket.
China's Xi Jinping and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff pledged further cooperation between the two countries to develop bilateral science and technology to the benefit of the two nations.
