China is developing a new family of rockets called Long March 5 to advance its space station plans and lunar exploration ambitions. The Long March 5 will be more powerful than China's current launchers and enable the country to launch a larger space station as well as conduct crewed missions to the moon. A key engine for the Long March 5 underwent a successful 200-second test firing in 2012. The Long March 5 is expected to make its first launch in 2014 and will significantly increase China's launch payload capacity.

2. By Leonard David, Space Insider
Columnist | October 25, 2012 07:00am ET
China is buildinga new rocket family that includes
the Long March 5.
Credit: Courtesy of Charles Vick
China is making progress in creating a new line of
launchersfor advancing its space station plans, as
well as bolstering its capability to land robots — and
possibly humans — on the moon.
Earlier this year, the China Aerospace Science and
Technology Corporationannouncedit had
successfully conducted a 200-secondtest firing with
the Long March 5 rocket's 120-ton-thrust liquid
oxygen (LOX) and kerosene engine. The engine is far
more powerful than the 75-ton-thrust engines of the
rockets used to launch China's piloted Shenzhou
spacecraft.
The China Manned Space Engineering (CMSE)
Office has noted that the high-performance engine is
the first kind of high-pressure staged combustion
cycle engine for which China has proprietary
intellectual propertyrights. It is non-toxic, pollution-
free and highly reliable, the CMSE stated, adding that

3. the engine makes China the second countryin the
world, after Russia, to grasp the core technologies for
a LOX/kerosene high-pressure staged combustion
cycle rocket engine.
CMSE officials say the Long March 5 should make
its maiden voyage in 2014. Ahead of that, several
limit-determining tests will be conducted to ensure
the engine's stability and reliability. [Gallery: The
World's Tallest Rockets]
To support launchesof the Long March 5 and other
next-generation boosters — a Long March 6 and
Long March 7 are also under development — China
is also building a spaceport, completewith a theme
park, in Hainan, an island province off the south
coast.
Hard at work
According to Liang Xiaohong, deputyhead of the
China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology,
production of the 197-foot-long(60 meters) rocket’s
key componentswill be completed within this year.
Liang told China's state-run Xinhua news agency that
the Long March 5 will more than triple Chinese
rockets’ carrying capacity by lofting a maximum of
25 tons to low Earth-orbit and 14 tons to
geosynchronousorbit.

4. The successful test of the first stage of the Long
March 5 earlier this year was highlighted by Gregory
Kulacki, senior analyst and China project manager in
the global security program of the Union of
Concerned Scientists based in Cambridge, Mass.
"The date most often associated with the Long March
5 is 2014, when the new launch facility in Hainan
should be completed,"Kulacki said.
He added that the increased lift is critical to China’s
plans to build a space station by 2020, and to the
third phase of the nation's Chang’e lunar program,
which aims to return lunarrock samples — collected
by a roboticrover — back to China for analysis.

5. China tested a new liquid oxygen and kerosene
engine for its planned Long March-5 rocket on July
29, 2012.
Credit: ChinaAerospace Scienceand Technology
Corporation
Three-stage plan
"Although the Long March-5 has had some technical
difficulties and is behind schedule, the successful
testing of the LOX engines last July makes the 2014
target date for beginning its operational use feasible,"
said Joan Johnson-Freese, a national security affairs

6. professor at the U.S. Naval War College in
Newport,R.I.
Johnson-Freesetold SPACE.comthat the Long
March 5 is necessary to launch China’s space
station into orbit — the culmination of its three-stage
plan for human spaceflight.
China launched its roboticTiangong 1 space
laboratoryin September2011. In June of this year, a
crew of three aboard the Shenzhou9 craft docked to
the lab, staying onboardfor several days before
returningto Earth. On the drawing boards, according
to Chinese space officials, is a large space station to
be in Earth orbit in the 2020 time frame. [Photos:
China's First Manned Space Docking]
"While current capacity was sufficient to place
the Tiangong space moduleinto orbit, a larger space
station is beyond China’s current capacity," Johnson-
Freese said. "Contrary to often popularbelief that a
manned lunar landingis already approved and under
development in China, a space station has always
been the goal of their 30-year plan for human
spaceflight approved in 1992, as Project 921."
Crews to the moon
Charles Vick, senior technical analyst for
GlobalSecurity.orgin Alexandria, Va., said that
China’s buildupof a new family of boosters"implies
a capabilitythat the U.S. may find difficult on the

7. world stage of geopolitical influence to contend with,
much less compete."
Vick said that the Long March 5 offers China the
capability to carry out crewed lunar circumnavigation
and lunar orbit flights.
"The absence of evidence on these human lunar
exploration goals does not mean something is not
happening,"Vick said. "It can be quite to the contrary
and more often than not it should be a red flag
warning that something is indeed going on that will
eventually manifest itself."
China’s parallel development of new launch vehicles,
its piloted Shenzhouspacecraft program and
spacewalking and docking activities support the
nation's space station and moon plans, Vick said.
“That cannot be ignored."
Efficienciesin production
Dean Cheng, a China space expert and research
fellow at The Heritage Foundation’sAsian Studies
Center in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com that
the Long March 5 is presumably tied into the larger
Chinese lunareffort, especially the current robotic
phase of lunar exploration.
"It’s interesting to note, however, that the latest space
white paper from China, released on December 31,

8. 2011, indicates an official study effort is now
underway for manned lunarexploration,"Cheng said.
The actual white paper language states: "China will
conductstudies on the preliminary plan for a human
lunarlanding."
The Long March 5 seems to be part of a larger family
of vehicles, Cheng said, "reflecting a fairly effective
effort at amortizing the costs of developing new
technologies by applying them across a family of
launch vehicles. This will likely generate efficiencies
in production. We have probablynot seen the last of
China as a competitorfor providing commercial
space launch."
Classic clash
In Cheng’s view, the Chinese are pursuing space
launchwith state-ownedenterprises as the preferred
solution path.
"In the United States, we’re going to rely more on
SpaceX, a private company, in the hopes/expectation
that they will be able to fulfill launch commitments
and even deliver people, while making a profit, and
hopefullyinnovating," Cheng said. "A classic clash
between two fundamentallydifferent approaches.".
Cheng said that the concentrationof major facilities
on Hainan island, including the new launch site, "is

9. probably a factor in growing Chinese assertiveness
over territorial claims to the entire South China Sea."
LeonardDavidhas been reporting on the space
industryfor more than five decades.He is a winner of
last year's National Space Club Press Award and a
past editor-in-chiefof the NationalSpace Society's
Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written
for SPACE.comsince1999.