MOSCOW – China has officially debuted its latest generation of commerciallaunch vehicles – the Long rockets, which are “basically capable of meetingthe requirements of the overwhelming majority of launch missions fordomestic and foreign commercial satellites”, said the developer on Sunday.
The new Long rocket series comprises a cluster of solid-fueled rocketscodenamed the Smart Dragon (SD)linkfamily,and a Tenglong liquid-propellant rocket, Sputnik has reported.
The SD rocket family is made up of the SD-1, -2, -3 launch vehicles. The SDrockets are capable of carrying payloads weighing between 200 kilograms and1.5 tons to the Sun-synchronous orbit 500 kilometers above the ground, thedeveloper, China Rocket in Beijing, told the Global Times via a statementon Sunday.[image: Chinese rocket]The first model of the SD family, the SD-1, completed its maiden flight onAugust 17, whose carrying capability was 200 kilograms, and is expected tocarry out 20 launch missions annually, said the statement.
The SD-2 and SD-3, according to the developer, are scheduled to make theirfirst flights in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The SD-2 has a carryingcapability of more than 500 kilograms and the SD-3 can send a payload ofmore than 1.5 tons into space.
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Also, the Tenglong liquid rocket, which was unveiled to the public for thefirst time on Saturday and remains at a sophisticated assessment stage, isexpected to be recyclable and to provide launch services for medium- tolarge-sized satellites and satellite constellations.
