China's new 'rockets' to take 'Long March' in five years

Beijing, Feb 6(ANI): China's new generation of Long March rockets-Long March -5, -6 and -7 -- are projected to make debut flights in the next five years.

Yu Menglun, a rocket scientist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has said that China has sought to build up non-toxic, low-cost, highly reliable, adaptable and safe carrier rockets in its research of the new generation products.

The Long March-5 rocket will use non-toxic and pollution-free propellant. It has a maximum low Earth-orbit payload capacity of 25 tonnes and geosynchronous orbit payload capacity of 14 tonnes, Xinhua reports.

According to the scientist, the Long March-6 is designed to be a high-speed response launch vehicle and has minimum of one tonnes of sun-synchronous orbit payload.

Whereas the Long March-7 has a maximum low Earth-orbit payload capacity of 13.5 tonnes and 5.5 tonnes of sun-synchronous orbit payload.

The Long March rocket family has already made more than 150 flights. The Shenzhou manned spaceships and China's lunar orbiters were all launched on the Long March rockets. (ANI)