On November 13, Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology developed Long March 6 (CZ-6) successfully fulfilled its 3^rd fly mission. At the same time Long March 6 has always been upgraded along with the changing international situation. In 2020 Long March 6 (CZ-6) will acquire the capability of secondary start-up, which releases larger transportation power. Apart from that, the improved Long March 6 is being developed in full swing.

Reuse technology will be verified for Long March 6 X

Hybrid Long March 6 A

Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology developed Long March 6 (CZ-6) and renamed it as Long March 6 A. With the structure of a two-and-half section, Long March 6 A will initiate its first flying at the end of 2020.

Besides 4 tied 2-meter diameter solid rocket booster (SRB), there will be two liquid engines equipped in core and first stage, both of which will be YF100 liquid oxygen and kerosene engines.

▲Diagram of Long March 6

Long March 6 A shall be China’sfirst hybrid rocket, which will make it possible to undertake the mission of multiorbital launch.

Besides Long March 6 A, other officially approved rockets will be named as Long March 6 X (CZ-6X), on which Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) will be verified and reuse will be realized with successfulvertical landing after mission completed.

▲Model of Long March 6 (CZ-6, left) and Long March 6 X (CZ-6X, right)

Dozens of foreign satellites launched with Long March 6 (CZ-6)

Although it has been two years since from last successful flying, we definitely shall receivelots of business orders both from China and other countries in the near future.

▲Initiation of Long March 6 (CZ-6)

In 2018, Long March 6 (CZ-6) witnessed its first international order -Launching with dozens of remote foreign satellites.

This order was placed by an international aerospace enterprise named Satellogic, whose headquarter was located in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, and signed a contact with China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), subsidiary of CASC, planning to launch90 small remote satellites named NewSat, in order to establish an earth monitoring constellation (namely satellites monitoring system).

Since from 2016, we helped them launch 5 NewSat satellites respectively on Long March 4 B (CZ-4B) and Long March 2 D (CZ-2D). However, these 5 satellites were only utilized for test rather than for official business use.

Next year, we will receive the first order for these 90 satellites - first 13 satellites launched on Long March 6 (CZ-6). And at least 5 times of launch shall be needed for the whole order mission.

Multiple choices for customers

In the territory of aerospace, China shall try all it takes to extend more businesses,

Regarding the growing demand of business launch, Long March 6 (CZ-6) has been equipped with all kinds of Satellite - Rocket separation device on the basis of standardization, general utilization, production and serialization. Meanwhile we can provide various flexible services for global customers, such as ‘shuttling, carpooling and hitchhiking’. A regular carpooling service for Sun-synchronous Orbit (SSO) satellites will come to the stage.

▲Launching video of Long March 6 (CZ-6)

Promotion oftask removing work has laid solid foundation of business extension for Long March 6 (CZ-6). Therefore, it improved rockets’ generality and adaptability, which means completing those nothing to do with satellites in the rocket first, then undertaking the contracted work immediately in the method of modularization.

For example, we have designed kinds of Satellite - Rocket separation device for CZ-6 package, which fulfilled all business demands and provided more choices for customers through shortening design period as well as facilitated ourselves.

From: Aerospace China, CASC, CCTV