# China's Orbital Launch Program > China's Long March rocket program, CASC's state-run orbital fleet, is setting national cadence records and driving Beijing's military, constellation, and deep-space ambitions. **Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads: · 4 takes · 4 lenses · 2 regions ## What it is China's orbital launch program encompasses the launch vehicles, launch sites, and operators that place payloads into orbit for Chinese government, military, and commercial customers. The dominant vehicle family is the Long March (Chang Zheng) series, developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state enterprise formally restructured in July 1999 from the former Ministry of Aerospace Industry. Two CASC subsidiaries build Long March vehicles: the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT, Beijing) and the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST, Shanghai). A growing commercial sector, including LandSpace, CAS Space, and Galactic Energy, holds China's National Space Administration (CNSA) launch licenses and competes for manifest slots alongside CASC on small and medium vehicles. ## History China's orbital program began April 24, 1970, when a Long March 1 placed the Dongfanghong 1 satellite in low Earth orbit, making China the fifth nation to achieve an independent launch capability. Of the first 600 Long March flights, CALT conducted 352 and SAST conducted 248. Cadence accelerated sharply: it took 37 years to reach 100 Long March launches, 7.5 years for the second 100, about four years for the third, roughly 2 years and 9 months for the fourth, and just two years for the fifth. The 600th Long March launch occurred October 16, 2025, when a Long March 8A orbited Guowang internet satellites from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site. As of that milestone, the fleet had delivered nearly 1,400 spacecraft with an overall success rate of about 97%. ## Current state China logged 93 orbital launches in 2025, a national record at the time, and is targeting roughly 140 in 2026, a roughly 50% increase. CASC alone is aiming for more than 100. By end-March 2026, China had completed 34 launches, about one every 2.5 days. The [2026 cadence push](/zh/n/china-launch-cadence-140-2026) is fueled primarily by [Guowang and Qianfan constellation batches](/zh/n/china-megaconstellation-batches-2026), which together may account for 70 or more missions that year. New vehicles are entering the manifest: Long March 12A flew its first successful orbital mission in March 2026; Long March 10A completed a suborbital test February 11, 2026, carrying a Mengzhou crew module; and Long March 12B flew a surprise maiden orbital mission June 1, 2026, loaded with paying-customer satellites, with its planned booster landing skipped entirely. The program also supports [China's Tiangong station crew rotations](/zh/n/china-tiangong-shenzhou-2026) and underpins the [expansion of military launch infrastructure](/zh/n/china-silo-launch-pads-xinjiang) in Xinjiang. ## Relationships CASC reports to the State Council via state-asset regulators and is distinct from CNSA, which is the diplomatic and regulatory face of Chinese civil space policy. China operates four primary orbital launch sites: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (Inner Mongolia), Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (Shanxi), Xichang Satellite Launch Center (Sichuan), and the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site (Hainan Island, operational 2016), which has become the main pad for low-orbit constellation batches due to its lower latitude. Launch services are used diplomatically: commercial and government customers in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia have flown payloads on Long March vehicles at rates that undercut Western and Russian providers. ## What to watch Whether China reaches 140 orbital launches in 2026 is the clearest near-term benchmark; achieving it would narrow the gap with US total launch cadence. Long March 10, the super-heavy vehicle designed for China's crewed lunar architecture, must complete a full orbital test before a crewed lunar landing, which Beijing has targeted for around 2030. First successful booster recovery on a Long March 12-series vehicle would mark China's practical entry into reusable operations and put cost-per-kilogram pressure on competitors beyond the current price advantage from state subsidy. ## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens) ### official record - **CGTN** (China, en) — Chinese state broadcaster carrying official CASC data on the 600th Long March launch (Long March 8A, October 16 2025) and the acceleration timeline: 37 years for the first 100 launches, two years for the fifth 100. Source: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-10-16/China-s-latest-launch-mission-marks-600th-flight-of-Long-March-rockets-1HwmSCKzjig/p.html ### trade press - **SpaceNews** (United States, en) — Trade-press tracking of China's 2026 orbital manifest through January, covering Yaogan reconnaissance and Guowang internet constellation payloads against the 140-launch annual target. Source: https://spacenews.com/chinas-first-launches-of-2026-send-yaogan-spacecraft-into-unusual-orbit-loft-guowang-satellites/ ### US space press - **Space.com** (United States, en) — Coverage of the 600th Long March mission in October 2025, with fleet history context and the milestone of nearly 1,400 spacecraft delivered by the Long March family. Source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/china-launches-internet-satellites-on-600th-mission-of-long-march-rocket-video ### analysis - **KeepTrack** (United States, en) — Analytical breakdown of China's 2025-2026 launch cadence, vehicle manifest, constellation drivers, and comparison with US commercial rates. Source: https://keeptrack.space/deep-dive/china-launch-cadence-2025-2026 ## Across the graph - Related: [[china-launch-cadence-140-2026]], [[china-megaconstellation-batches-2026]], [[china-silo-launch-pads-xinjiang]], [[china-tiangong-shenzhou-2026]] - Entities: China Launch, China, Casc, Launch Cadence, Guowang, Qianfan --- Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/zh/n/china-launch-dossier