Liquid propellant rocket engines for a launch vehicle are an essential aerospace technology, representing the advanced level of hi-tech in a country. In recent years, China’s aerospace industry has made remarkable achievements, and liquid rocket engine technology has also been effectively developed. In this article, the development processes of China’s liquid rocket engines are discussed. Then, the performance features of China’s new generation liquid rocket engines as well as the flight tests of the new-generation launch vehicles are introduced. Finally, the development direction and the most recent progress of the next generation large-thrust liquid rocket engine is presented.

High power Hall electric propulsion technology is a very competitive electric propulsion technology for future large space missions such as large GEO satellites, manned space programs, deep space explorations, cargo ships, space tugs. Based on the experience of more than 20 years in research and development of Hall electric propulsion, the Shanghai Institute of Space Propulsion (SISP) has developed 3 high power Hall thrusters, i.e., the 10 kW class HET-500, 20 kW class HET-1000, and 50 kW class HET-3000. This paper presents the development status of the high power ( ≥ 10 kW) Hall electric propulsion at SISP, including tests of 3 high power Hall thrusters in the power range from 10 kW to 50 kW, the qualification of a single string of a 10 kW Hall electric propulsion system, and the study of a cluster of two 1.35 kW HET-80 Hall thrusters to understand the technical issues related to multi-thruster high power electric propulsion systems.

Throttling of large-thrust liquid rocket engines, which can improve mission adaptability of a carrier rocket, reduce risk and facilitate rocket recovery, is a key technology for current and future space development. This paper summarizes the state of the art and trends of throttling technology for large-thrust liquid rocket engines at home and abroad. According to the working principles of propulsion for rocket engines, throttling the propellant flow rate is a major way of adjusting thrust, and regulation devices along with adjustable injectors are primary measures of throttling propellant flow rates. This paper clarifies the working principles of typical regulation devices and adjustable injectors, introduces the regulation schemes of typical large-thrust engines such as YF-100, RD-170, and SSME, and summarizes the main characteristics of current throttleable large-thrust engines. Finally, critical technologies and development trends of throttling are discussed, including combustion stability and reliable cooling of thrust chambers at low thrust levels, turbopump stability, and stable regulation and precise control in a wide range of operating conditions.

The Space Power Satellite (SPS) would be a huge spacecraft capturing the power of solar radiation in space and to supply electric power to the electric grid on the ground. The SPS concept was proposed by Dr. Peter Glaser in 1968. SPS have been studied now for exactly fifty years by many scientists in various countries. It has been regarded as one of the most promising energy projects of the future and has been attracting more attention in recent years. More and more Chinese scholars and experts are paying attention to the development of SPS. Due to the huge size, immense mass and high power of such a satellite system, there are many technical difficulties which exist to realize SPS. In this paper, recent SPS research and development activities are reviewed first. Various SPS concepts are analyzed and compared. The primary scheme of the Multi-Rotary joint SPS (MR-SPS) is described. The main feature is that the huge solar array comprising many separate small solar sub-arrays and each solar sub-array has two middle power rotary joints. So, the most challenging technology, the high-power rotary joint, is simplified by using many middlepower rotary joints hence the possibility of a single-point failure of a single rotary joint is avoided. This enables easy assembly of the modular solar arrays. Finally some key technologies of MR-SPS are analyzed.

The GF-3 satellite, the first C band and multi-polarization Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite in China, achieved breakthroughs in a number of key technologies such as multi-polarization and the design of a multiimaging mode, a multi-polarization phased array SAR antenna, and in internal calibration technology. The satellite technology adopted the principle of “Demand Pulls, Technology Pushes”, creating a series of innovation firsts, reaching or surpassing the technical specifications of an international level.

As human aeronautic and aerospace technology continues to prosper and the aerial flight space domain further expands, traditional fixed-shape air vehicles have been confronted with difficulties in satisfying complex missions in cross-domain scenarios. Owing to their flexible and deformable appearance, morphing air vehicles are expected to realize cross-domain intelligent flight, thus emerging as the most subversive strategic development trend and research focus in aeronautic and aerospace fields. This paper primarily reviews the research background and challenges of flexible and deformable cross-domain intelligent flight, proposing a corresponding research framework and mode as well as exploring the scientific issues and state-of-the-art solutions, where key research progress is introduced. The explorations covered in this paper also provide ideas and directions for the study of deformable cross-domain intelligent flight, which has critical scientific significance in promoting the study itself.

SuperView-1 satellite constellation (SuperView-1 for short) is the first commercial remote sensing constellation with a resolution down to 0.5 m. It’s an important part of the national spatial information infrastructure construction. It will play an important role for the global users providing remote sensing data, application solutions and remote sensing value-added services with its high-resolution and 24-hour observation capability. At present, 4 satellites of the constellation have been successfully launched and networked on orbit. The services cover surveying and mapping, land resource surveying, urban planning, agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, geological mining, environmental monitoring, defense, disaster reduction along with other traditional industries. There are also great potential applications in Mobile Internet, LBS, Smart city, insurance and other emerging professions. The successful operation of SuperView-1 
breaks the overseas monopoly for commercial high-resolution remote sensing satellite imagery in the China market. 
It’s one of the major achievements in China space science and technology by actively exploring the development of commercial remote sensing markets, which is of strategic significance to the development of China remote sensing satellite business.

Hall thruster is a type of electric propulsion thruster which is often regarded as a moderate specific impulse space propulsion technology and is used primarily for station keeping and orbit maintenance tasks. Magnetic field is the most important aspect in Hall thruster’s design. Each time the performance improvement of Hall thrusters is accompanied with the regeneration of magnetic field design. Now, all the major space nations treat the magnetic field design as the key technology for Hall thrusters, and many Hall thrusters have emerged in recent years, for example, BPT-4000 and NASA-173M. In China, based on magnetic focus technology, the Beijing Institute of Control Engineering (BICE) has been developing Hall thrusters ranged from hundreds of watts to 5 kilowatts, including the 1500 W HEP-100MF and the 5 kW HEP-140MF Hall thrusters. This paper briefly reviews the development of the HEP-XXMF series Hall thruster. The principle of the Hall thruster, the design methods and the current status of HEP-100MF and HEP-140MF are discussed in the paper.

Traditionally RF power amplifiers used Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) technology which has a well behaved and understood performance. Over the past few years Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology is replacing GaAs because GaN is 
more efficient and has a higher power density resulting in higher power MMICs and FETs.
Subject to system link budgets, we usually want to run a given amplifier as close to saturation as possible to minimize CAPEX costs. Running an amplifier closer to saturation causes many non-linear effects that can cause link performance degradation and interfere with other users.
To better understand and quantify the differences between GaN and GaAs amplifiers and the impact of this on system performance, some amplifier and system measurements will be taken. The findings will be documented in a white paper.

satellite of the China national geophysical field observation series of satellite missions, the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) was designed upon an optimized CAST2000 platform for a sun synchronous orbit. Onboard CSES, there are total eight types of scientific payloads including the Search-coil Magnetometer, Electric Field Detector, High Precision Magnetometer, GNSS Occupation Receiver, Plasma Analyzer, Langmuir Probe, Energetic Particle Detector Package, and a Three-band Transmitter to individually acquire the global electromagnetic field, electromagnetic waves, ionospheric plasma parameters as well as energetic particles. Up to now, CSES has been operating normally in orbit for 2 years. By using the various sensor data acquired by CSES, we have achieved scientific research in the areas of the global geomagnetic field modeling, space weather, earthquake event analysis, the Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere coupling mechanism and so on.

Over the next decade,Very High-Throughput Satellite (VHTS) will bring enough capacity to serve high speed internet and in-flight connectivity markets at scale, offering fiber-like services both in terms of price and speed. In this context, a generic VHTS mission utilizing Q/V-band feeder links and Ka-band user links is described. However, the rain attenuation on the feeder links becomes a limiting issue because of the higher frequencies. Toward this, an exploitation of multiple gateways (GWs) as a transmit diversity measure for overcoming severe propagation effects are being considered. Ground Application System (GAS) design of VHTS is illustrated including N+P GWs (N active and P redundant GWs) diversity, frequency plan, link budget and system capacity.

FY-4 is the second generation of Chinese geostationary satellite for quantitative remote sensing meteorological application. The detection efficiency, spectral bands, spatial and time resolution have been greatly improved with respect to those of first generation, as well as the radiometric calibration and sensitivity. The combination of multichannel detection and vertical sounding was first realized on FY-4, because both the Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager (AGRI) and Geostationary Interferometric Infrared Sounder (GIIRS) are on the same spacecraft. The main performance of the payloads including AGRI, GIIRS and Lightning Mapping Imager, and the spacecraft bus are presented, the performance being equivalent to the level of the third generation meteorological satellites in Europe and USA. The acquiring methods of remote sensing data including multichannel and high precision quantitative observing, imaging collection of the ground and cloud, vertical observation of atmospheric temperature and moisture, lightning imaging observation and space environment detection are shown. Several innovative technologies including high accuracy rotation angle detection and scanning control, high precision calibration, micro vibration suppression, unified reference of platform and payload and on-orbit measurement, real-time image navigation and registration on-orbit were applied in FY-4.

The far side of the moon is a unique place for some scientific investigations. Chang’e 4 is a Chinese lunar far side landing exploration mission. Relay communication satellite, named as Queqiao, is an important and innovative part of Chang’e 4 mission. It can provide relay communication to the lander and the rover operating on the lunar far side to maintain their contacts with Earth. It was launched by LM-4C launch vehicle at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on May 21, 2018. After five precise orbit controls and a journey of more than 20 days, Queqiao inserted into final halo mission orbit around Earth-moon libration point 2, located about 65,000 km beyond the moon. It is the world’s first communication satellite operating in that orbit. Up to now, Queqiao worked very well and provided reliable, continuous communication relay service for the lander and the rover to ensure the mission success of Chang’e 4 exploration mission. Via Queqiao, the lander and the rover were controlled to work by ground stations and obtained a great amount of scientific data. The mission overview, operation orbit selection, relay communication system design and flight profile were introduced in this article.

Heavy launch vehicles represent the ability of a country to enter space and utilize space resources. In recent years, with the growth in human space exploration, the major aerospace powers and companies in the world are planning to develop heavy launch vehicles. This study analyzes the development of heavy launch vehicles in the world, reviews the characteristics of China’s heavy launch vehicle serial configuration, and then proposes common points and development trends of future heavy launch vehicles in the world.

Based on the introduction to theresearch status and trend of international space-based laser debris removal technology, the existing problems of space-based laser debris removal technology are systematically analyzed. 
In view of the existing problems, the work and research progress of the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft Environment Engineering in this field are introduced from several aspects, such as dynamic behavior of laser-driven debris, orbit transfer model, ground simulation system, space-based removal system scheme and target selection strategy. The main research methods include laser-driven micro-impulse measurement experiment, surface triangulation three-dimensional reconstruction calculation method based on laser-material interaction theory, simulation calculation based on orbital dynamics, etc. It also looks forward to the future research direction in the field of this technology.

The Long March 11 launch vehicle (LM-11) is the only solid launch vehicle within China’s new-generation launch vehicle series, enabling a full spectrum of Chinese launch vehicles. Compared with other China’s LM series launch vehicles, it has the shortest launch preparation time. With the characteristics of appropriate launch capability, quick response, easy-to-use, flexible operation, universal interface and strong task adaptability, LM-11 can better meet the launch requirements for various small networking satellite, replacement and for emergency use. After four successful launches, LM-11 has become the main Chinese launch vehicle oriented to the international small satellite commercial launch market.

This paper first introduces the technical requirements for autonomous flight, with a brief review of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) study group, “autonomous dynamic trajectory optimization control of launch vehicle”. Two research scenarios, ascent rescue and powered descent, are compared from the viewpoint of optimal control. On this basis, the technologies on the autonomous trajectory planning and control under the thrust-drop failures in the ascending phase, and the autonomous guidance method during the powered landing for the recovery of the rockets are discussed respectively. For the ascending problem, the characteristics of different solutions, including the iterative guidance method (IGM)-based residual carrying capacity evaluation, the state-triggered indices (STI), the joint planning with the payload’s performance, and the multiple graded ptimization (MGO), are analyzed for comparison. For the landing problem, the challenges such as the feasible region reduction caused by high thrust weight ratio (HTWR) and the disturbance adaptability brought by the limited feasible region, are studied in detail, as well as the onboard planning demonstration flight in China are introduced. Finally, the foundations supporting the above methods are summarized, which play an important role in promoting the flight autonomy.

In the history of human space exploration, many failures of launch vehicles and spacecraft tare caused by vibration. At first, the periods in which the space products are in a vibration environment are discussed and the need for vibration testing is then introduced. As the main content of this paper, the current situation of shaker systems is elaborated in detail. In this part, electrodynamic shakers, as the most widely used vibration generators, are illustrated in detail including structures, principles and performances. Special inventions worldwide in the development of electrodynamic shakers such as induction ring shakers, high force shakers, multi-axial vibration testing systems and combined environmental testing systems are presented. At last, the recent progress and outlook of shaker systems are summarized.

Queqiao relay communications satellite was developed to provide relay communications services for the lander and the rover on the far side of the moon. From entering into its halo mission orbit around the Earth-moon libration point 2 on June 14, 2018, it has operated on orbit more than fifteen months. It worked very well and provided reliable, continuous relay communications services for the lander and the rover to accomplish the goals of Chang’e 4 lunar far side soft landing and patrol exploration mission. The on-orbit operation status of Queqiao relay communications satellite is summarized in this paper.

Following the successful maiden flight of the Long March 11 (LM-11) launch vehicle from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in September 2015, the first sea-launched carrier rocket dedicated to provide a launch service for small satellites and their constellations, the Long March 11 Sea Launch (LM-11SL) has been under development by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) and the China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC). It is planned to commence launch service in 2018. Based on the LM-11, a land-launched four-staged solid launch vehicle which has entered the market and accomplished launch missions for several small satellites in the past 3 years, the newly adopted sea launch technology enables transport and launch of LM-11SL from maritime ships, providing flexible launch location selection.
After inheriting the mature launch vehicle technologies from previous members of the Long March launch vehicle family and adopting a new way of launching from the sea, the LM-11SL is capable of sending payloads into low Earth orbits with all altitudes and inclinations, from 200 km to 1000 km, from equatorial to sun synchronous, within a shortduration launch campaign. The LM-11SL provides a flexible, reliable and economical launch service for the global small satellite industry.

Compared with traditional ground asteroid observations, deep space exploration is an important way to explore and comprehensively understand the characteristics of asteroids. Imaging spectrometer integrates morphological measurement and spectral measurement, and has the ability to acquire image and spectral data simultaneously. By combining morphometry and spectrometry, it is possible to achieve efficient identification and quantitative analysis of the chemical components of the exploration target, and has the strong advantage in the field of asteroid exploration. 
This paper analyzes the principle of the staring imaging spectrometer and the technological progress in various countries. Based on the requirements of light, small payloads and the space characteristics of spectroscopic devices, the application of staring imaging spectrometer is discussed. Then, this paper introduces the conceptual design of an acousto-optic staring imaging spectrometer, combined with the technical characteristics of its area array stare frame imaging and fast electronic control spectrum selection. An experimental verification is carried out, which provides a reference for the feasibility of this type of instrument in asteroid exploration.

This paper analyzes the launch price of the launch vehicles, domestic and abroad, studies the status and trend of the low cost launch vehicles, and introduces two measures to reduce the cost by means of evolved and disruptive technologies, utilizing the concept of low cost manufacturing and operating modes as well. This paper also analyzes the launch strategies for small satellites such as piggyback, networking launch, and single launch with a small launch vehicle (SLV). Finally, the development trend of reusable launch vehicles is discussed as well as the development prospects for China’s reusable launch vehicle.

Hypersonic flow-field measurement techniques have been studied for about 50 years. Despite truly remarkable progress with a probe or other device to measure the temperature, pressure or velocity, there are still serious problems for these "intrusive" techniques. The intrusive measurement techniques introduce unexpected shock waves or flow-field structures, even make the boundary layer transition earlier and show a converse result. In recent years, nonintrusive diagnostics have been in urgent demand to give a more accurate and comprehensive flow-field for hypersonic testing. In this paper, an overview of some advanced nonintrusive measurement techniques such as embedded thermocouples for heat flux measurement, Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), infrared thermographs, and focusing Schlieren system are introduced. All of these techniques are nonintrusive and provide measurement of various parameters such as temperature, static pressure, dynamic pressure, flow velocity and visualization of flow structure, which gives us an exact and direct understanding of the hypersonic flow.

Space is becoming more accessible than ever before. Falling satellite manufacturing and launch costs have opened the door to new players to enter the market, disrupting the status quo. HTS and constellations have entered the market and will lead to a lot more capacity at a lower price. But how this capacity will be optimally distributed remains a significant challenge. Earth Observation (EO) and Big Data are also areas of interest that are gaining grounds thanks to projects of 100s if not 1,000s of satellites that will have a lasting effect on manufacturing and launch markets.

The slow progress and lack of fundamental breakthroughs in legislative practices are an important subject for China’s space legislation. Oriented by the idea to formulate China’s space law as soon as possible, it is necessary to solve five key issues. In the national policy, it is needful not only to implement China’s space policy and promote the development of the space industry in depth, but also to advance the deep integration of military and civil application in space field. In terms of legal orientation, three features should be reflected upon, including the functional integration of public and private laws, the balance of regulation by substantive and procedural laws, and the effective coordination of domestic and international laws. To this end, both top-level design and implementation should be paid close attention to in order to achieve significant progress in China’s space legislation.

The divergence angle of laser beam used in space laser communication is usually no more than 100 μrad. Using laser beam with small divergence angle to achieve acquisition and tracking for space laser link has al-ways been a difficult problem. In addition, the random nature of the atmosphere will affect the satellite-ground laser link, which increases the difficulty of the acquisition and stable tracking for the laser link. Thus, taking into account the above challenges for satellite-ground laser communication, an acquisition and tracking scheme of using both beacon beam and signal beam was designed for the Laser Communication Terminal (LCT) of Shijian 20 satellite. In-orbit test results indicated that under the condition of moderate atmospheric turbulence (atmospheric coherence length r0≈3cm), the process of acquisition and tracking for the satellite-ground laser link can be completed within 1s after the initial pointing between the LCT and Optical Ground Station (OGS) is performed, and the tracking error was less than 1 μrad (3σ). In addition, the laser link can be re-established quickly once being interrupted by unsteady atmospheric turbulence, and can be maintained for a long time under moderate twurbulence conditions, which lays a foundation for future application of satellite-ground laser communication.

Upper stage is an indispensable vehicle in the space transportation system. For its role in multi-satellite transportation area in China, the development of the Yuanzheng 3 upper stage was approved. The article introduces in detail the Yuanzheng 3 upper stage development requirements, task definition and systems as well as main features and performance including payload capacity and insertion accuracy for typical orbits, interfaces with satellites. The article also presents the development cycle of Yuanzheng 3 upper stage, which is divided into 3 stages including concept demonstration stage, prototype stage and flight proof stage. The Yuanzheng 3 upper stage, which will make its maiden flight in 2018, is capable of restarting more than 20 times, and operating for more than 48 hours. It is equivalent to mainstream upper stages in the world in terms of performance, such as restart times, in-orbit operation time, independent digital control system, and adaptable behavior for various tasks. Technologies tackled and accumulated in the development of the Yuanzheng 3 upper stage will lay a solid foundation for the development of future space transportation vehicles.

For the last 10 years, the Venezuelan aerospace industry has been constantly growing, and it is to be expected to continue in the same way in the future. China and its space industry, as the main partner for most of the ongoing Venezuelan space projects from their beginning, has been an important player in their development and may continue acting as one of the most important partners not only for the Venezuelan aerospace industry but also for other Latin-American countries’ aerospace industries.
ABAE (Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities) together with the related Chinese aerospace companies, with the guidance and help of CGWIC, has been constantly improving its cooperation methods, regarding technical work flows as well as management activities, especially for the latest’s space projects under development, namely the CIDE (Venezuelan Design, Assembly, Integration and Testing Center) and VRSS-2 (Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite-2) programs. Provided that there is a deeper and stronger cooperation in the future, partnership and friendship of the different scientists, experts and leaders from the space sectors of both countries, will be improved and strengthened for the development of both nations social welfare.

The Smart Dragon 1 (SD-1) launch vehicle is the first commercial rocket developed by China Academy 
of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), targeting to the international launch market for small satellites. As the smallest launch vehicle in China at present, SD-1 is one of the most efficient solid boost rockets nationwide in terms of launch capacity. Compared with current domestic rockets, it provides remarkable access to space with a faster response, higher orbit-injection accuracy and better payload accommodation at a lower cost. On August 17, 2019, SD-1 completed its maiden flight and delivered three satellites into the desired Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) of 550 km accurately. In this article, a technical review of SD-1 is presented detailing the design concept and the use of state of the art technology throughout its development.

At an accelerating development pace, Micro-Nano Satellite technology has become one of the most active research topics in the current aerospace field. Its applications have been extended from engineering education and technology demonstration into various other fields, such as communication, remote sensing, navigation and scientific experiments just to name a few. In this paper issues raised on Micro/Nano-Satellites in recent news are reviewed and the opportunities and challenges confronting Micro/Nano-Satellites are analyzed. Then the Micro/nano-Satellites of National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) are briefly introduced. Finally, some suggestions on the development of Micro/Nano-Satellites in the future are proposed.

The CubeSat refers to the low-cost nano satellite produced by international standards. The QB50 project is “an International Network of 50 double CubeSats for multi-point, in-situ, long-duration measurements in the lower thermosphere and re-entry research”. There are 23 countries and region participated in the QB50 Project. 38 CubeSats were developed and launched. Among them, four CubeSats developed by Chinese universities were sent to orbit (Three were deployed from the International Space Station, and one was launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PLSV). They are Aoxiang-1 (Northwestern Polytechnical University, the Asia coordinator), LilacSat-1 (Harbin Institute of Technology), NJUST-2 (Nanjing University of Science and Technology) and NUDTsat (National University of Defense Technology). Through the development of the QB50 Project, Chinese researchers and students got in touch with the concept of CubeSat and gained experience of international scientific cooperation. A lot of students took part in the assembly, integration, and test of spacecraft, which is helpful to the training of space talents. Now, many universities and institutes have the capabilities to develop CubeSats and the subsystems independently.

With the development of manned spaceflight, more and more researches are involved in the area of gravitation physiology. When astronauts are exposed to microgravity, a series of special physiological or pathological changes will occur, which will start self-regulation mechanisms to reduce abnormalities and help the organism to better adapt to microgravity. However, these adaptive changes may also induce degradation or damage to physiological functions. This paper summarizes the physiological effects of microgravity on the human body from the aspects of skeletal and mineral metabolism, muscle structure and function, vestibular functions, cardiovascular function and pulmonary function, as well as expounds some commonly used ground-based space analogies. The paper will provide a reference for further study on the physiological effects of microgravity.

China’s new-generation launch vehicle LM-5 successfully completed its maiden launch in November 2016. Among the new technologies applied in the launch vehicle, four types of liquid rocket engines attracted extensive attention. These engines feature advanced concepts and technologies such as a staged combustion cycle and expander cycle. The engines are the results of hard effort of more than ten years, which is also an epitome of the development history of China’s aerospace industry. This paper gives a brief introduction to the technological schemes, main parameters, development process and application of the four types of engines that powered the new-generation launch vehicle. Finally, proposals for new liquid propulsion technology development in the future in China are presented.

This paper proposes the architecture of an intelligent flight launcher system as well as fundamental solutions to capability prediction and dynamic planning. This effort reflects the latest progress in the applications of intelligent and autonomous technology for launcher flights. The paper first describes the characteristics and capabilities of intelligent and autonomous systems and classifies various related technologies. In the context of intelligent and autonomous technology in aerospace engineering, it then focuses on technical difficulties involved with intelligent flight and reviews developments in the field. An E3 classification model of an intelligent flight launcher is then proposed and its application scenarios are discussed. Based on an intelligent flight system configuration of the launcher, the online trajectory planning and initial value guess are examined, and vertical landing is provided as an example to explain the effects of the implementation of computational intelligence to flight systems.

The LM-3A series launch vehicle was used for all launch missions for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) project, including BDS-1, BDS-2, and BDS-3. So it is known as Space Express for BDS. During the 26 years’ development period for the BDS project, a series of key technological breakthroughs with the LM-3A series of launch vehicles were made, improving the launch capability of different payloads into GTO, IGTO and MTO, from sending one satellites into transfer orbit to sending two satellites into transfer orbit, to sending two satellites into target orbit directly. A total of 59 satellites in 44 launches were launched using the LM-3A series launch vehicle for the BDS project, achieving 100% success.

The Long March 5 (LM-5) launch vehicle is China’s new generation heavy-lift rocket with the largest payload capacity, representing the highest standard of China’s current launchers. It took 10 years to develop the LM-5 launch vehicle. On November 3, 2016, the LM-5 carrier rocket blasted off from the Wenchang satellite launch center on Hainan Island, achieving a successful maiden flight. During the development of the LM-5 rocket, the engineering team accumulated abundant experience on developing heavy-lift cryogenic rockets and established a thorough research and development system for new generation launch vehicles, which significantly raised the ability for launcher R&D.