Chinese next generation carrier rocket, Long March-5B made a successful test flight on Tuesday, during which the new rocket was able to send a prototype version of the manned spaceship of the next generation to a projected orbit, without a crew and a prototype cargo-returning spacecraft.
This launch operated the crew spacecraft without anyone on board, taking off from Wengchang in China, the country’s newest spacecraft launch facility. The Long March 5B is a 10-engine rocket, with four boosters that improve its lifting capability and is the nation’s strongest launch vehicle. It lacks a second stage and is explicitly built to carry large payloads to low Earth – which is exactly what is needed to build up a China Space Station by 2022.
The latest model would bring large spacecraft to low earth orbit.Long March 5B is the first version of the Long March 5, launched from the Wenchang center in December .
Long March 5 is to launch massive satellites on high orbits or to lift deep space studies, while the current Long March 5b concept is to bring large spaceships into low earth orbits.
Long March 5B configurations
Full length-53.7 meters,Core diameter- 5 meters,Booster diameter-3.35 meters,liftoff weight-849 tons,Fuel-Liquid Hydrogen,Liquid Oxygen,Kerosene
The 18-story racket exploded from a platform in the coastal center at 6 p.m.The agency said in a statement that almost 9 minutes later it put prototypes of China’s next-generation manned spacecraft and experimental cargo retrieval craft along with more than 10 Low-Earth experimental payloads.
Long March 5B is important because it is now the only Chinese launch vehicle to carry huge space station pieces in orbit.Tuesday’s flight made the Long March 5B with a payload of about 22 metric tons the strongest Chinese rocket to bring power to the lower Earth’s orbit.
