Long March 2 (rocket Family) - History

History

Development and design falls mostly under the auspices of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. The rockets use the abbreviations LM-2 family for export, and CZ-2 family within China, as "Chang Zheng" means "Long March" in Chinese pinyin.

Long March 2 is the base model of the Long March 2 rocket family, derived from Chinese first ICBM DF-5. The development work began in 1970, the first rocket was launched on November 5, 1974, but the launch failed. The production of the rocket ended in 1979.

Although not officially reported, it is believed that Long March 2A and Long March 2B were assigned to derivations which targeted to launch the first Chinese static orbit communication satellite Dong Fang Hong 2 into GTO, with different 3rd stage solutions. The original Long March 2A, which planned to use hypergolic rocket fuels as the third stage, was later renamed to Long March 4. In addition, the original Long March 2B, which used cryogenic fuel as third stage, was later renamed to Long March 3. Each of them derived into a full rocket family with various configurations, but the core 1st stage and 2nd stage are mostly kept unchanged.

Long March 2C and Long March 2D's first launches occurred in 1982 and 1990 respectively.

The Long March 2E was the first one in the Long March rocket family that introduced liquid rocket boosters, to improve its GTO payload capacity to satisfy the domestic and international launch market in the 1990s. It was first launched in 1992.

The development of Long March 2F began in 1992, which is a man-rated version of Long March 2E. Its first launch was in November 1999 (See also Shenzhou 1). This version is the safest model in the Long March 2 family, with 7 launches and no failure record.

Long March 2D and Long March 4 were developed by the Shanghai Space Agency, while all others are developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.