China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the country’s southern Sichuan region successfully launched three new remote sensing satellites on Saturday, according to official media.
According to the Xinhua news agency, the Yaogan-35 satellites were launched by a Long March-2D carrier rocket and successfully entered the planned orbit. The Long March series carrier rockets were launched for the 396th time.
China’s Long March-3B rocket, which has been the backbone of the country’s space program since 1970, successfully completed its 300th launch in March 2019, launching a new communication satellite into orbit.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation’s Long March carrier rocket family is responsible for roughly 96.4 percent of all Chinese launch operations.
According to Xinhua, the Long March rockets took 37 years to complete the first 100 launches, 7.5 years to complete the second 100 launches, and only four years to complete the last 100 flights, with the average number of launches per year climbing from 2.7 to 13.3 and finally to 23.5.
