14 February 2018
The year 2018 will be an ambitious year for China's space program, with the largest number of Long March rocket launches.
According to Cen Zheng, rocket system commander-in-chief of the Long March-3A mission, 2018 will see 35 launches of the Long March rocket series, with 14 missions carried out by Long March-3A rockets and six by Long March-3C rockets. "Eight of the 14 Long March-3A rockets to be sent into space in 2018 will carry twin BeiDou-3 satellites," Cen said, enabling BeiDou system to provide navigation and positioning services to countries along the Belt and Road. He added: "The Long March-3A rocket family will fulfil 40 tasks from 2018 to 2020. We have a tight schedule." Although no Long March-7 rockets will be launched in 2018, developers are tasked with improving the rockets' reliability. Launches of Long March-5 have been scheduled for the latter half of this year in preparation for China's lunar probe and Mars probe missions.
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