Long March 5

Success of the Long March 5 return-to-flight is required for China to proceed with planned missions to Mars, the Moon, and a crewed space station.

Chang’e-5 is scheduled to launch in late 2020 atop the fifth Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket.

The previous Long March 5 launch failed in 2017-07-01 due to a turbopump failure on one of two YF-77 cryogenic first-stage engines, causing the payload to fail to achieve orbit.

The fourth Long March 5 is scheduled to launch China’s first independent interplanetary mission to Mars in July or 2020-08-01.

Yuanwang cargo ships deliver Long March 5 components to Hainan by sea because China’s rail system cannot transport the 5-meter-diameter Long March 5 core.

The 2017-07-01 Long March 5 failure postponed planned construction of a modular low Earth orbit space station whose 20-metric-ton modules will be launched by the Long March 5B variant.

Components of the Long March 5 were delivered to Wenchang by sea late last month for assembly and testing ahead of launch.

On 2019-01-29, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation planned a return-to-flight of the Long March 5 for July.

The Long March 5 launch expected in late December will attempt to place the Shijian-20 experimental communications satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit.

China has launched two Long March 5 rockets and two Long March 7 rockets from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center.

Yuanwang-21 and Yuanwang-22 will deliver the third Long March 5 rocket to Hainan island for launch preparations at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center.

Shijian-20 is a replacement for Shijian-18, which was lost in the 2017-07-01 launch failure of the second Long March 5.

Launch preparations at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center for the third Long March 5 are expected to take about two months after delivery to Hainan.

The Long March 5B uses the same YF-77 engines and similar cores as the Long March 5 and is therefore dependent on a successful Long March 5 return-to-flight.

The 2017-07-01 Long March 5 failure delayed the Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission that had been scheduled for 2017-12-01.

A turbopump on one of the two YF-77 cryogenic first-stage engines failed during the 2017-07-01 Long March 5 launch, causing the rocket and payload to fail to achieve orbit.

The Long March 5 failure postponed testing of the Long March 5B variant developed to launch space station modules into low Earth orbit.

China planned the return-to-flight of the Long March 5 potentially before the end of 2019 after its grounding since a 2017-07-01 failure.