Long March Rockets Complete 2018 Missions with 37 Record-Setting Launches

A LM-2D/Yuanzheng 3 launch vehicle successfully launched 6 Yunhai 2 satellites and one test microsatellite named “Chongqing” into their preset orbits, concluding China'sfinal orbital launch of 2018. The launch took place at 16:00 Beijing time on December 29,2018 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The Yunhai 2 mission is composed by 6 identical satellites that were developed by Aerospace Dongfanghong Development Ltd., Shenzhen under CASC. Three satellites were sent to a circular orbit of 520 km and the other 3 to a circular orbit of 1095 km. These satellites are to be used in areas such as atmospheric environmental element detection, space environment monitoring,disaster prevention and mitigation and for scientific experiments.

The piggybacked microsatellite was the first satellite of Hongyan constellation. Developed by Aerospace Dongfanghong Development Ltd., Shenzhen,the test satellite is to demonstrate the availability of L- and Ka-band communications frequency resources and critical technology for data transfer, laying a foundation for the construction of the Hongyan constellation global low orbit communications system.

This was the first flight of Yuanzheng 3 upper stage, which was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST). The new type of space transportation vehicle is capable of conducting over 20 autonomous quick orbital maneuvers and carrying out deployment of multiple satellites at different orbits, placing several satellites directly into preset space orbits independently. It also can play an important role in such areas as quick and flexible access to space, space maneuvers and space utilization.

Developed by SAST, LM-2D is a conventional liquid launch vehicle. It accurately sent the combination of the upper stage and satellites into predetermined altitudes in its 8th and the final flight in 2018, only 22 days after its last mission. It was the 43rd mission of LM-series launch vehicle. (ZHAO Cong/China Space News)

The LM-2D/Yuanzheng 3 is soaring up into space, concluding China'sfinal orbital launch of 2018 Photo: ZHOU Zixi