China plans to launch the third one of its large carrier rocket Long March 5 in July, said Yang Baohua, vice president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) on Tuesday.
The second Long March 5 rocket was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in the southern province of Hainan on July 2, 2017, but a malfunction happened less than six minutes after its liftoff.
Yang said at a press conference of CASC that the cause of the failure has been found. If the third flight is successful, the fourth Long March 5 carrier rocket will be tasked to send the Chang'e 5 lunar probe to the moon to bring lunar samples back to Earth at the end of 2019.
The Long March 5 is also expected to launch the country's first independent mission to Mars during the Hohmann transfer window in late July to early August 2020.
Long March 5 is the first Chinese vehicle with a new design focusing on liquid rocket propellants from the ground up Currently, two configurations of this launch vehicle are planned for different missions, with a maximum payload capacity of about 25,000 kilograms (55,000 lb) to LEO and 14,000 kilograms (31,000 lb) to GTO.
Credit: xinhuanet.com
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