The Long March 3B (Chinese: 长征三号乙火箭, Chang Zheng 3B), also known as the CZ-3B and LM-3B, is a Chinese orbital carrier rocket. Introduced in 1996, it is launched from Launch Area 2 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan. A three-stage rocket with four strap-on liquid rocket boosters, it is currently the most powerful member of the Long March rocket family and the heaviest of the Long March 3 rocket family, and is mainly used to place communications satellites into geosynchronous orbits. At the time of its introduction, the Long March 3B was the second-most-capable expendable launch system in the world, after the Russian Proton. An enhanced version, the Long March 3B/E, was introduced in 2007 to increase the rocket's GTO cargo capacity and lift heavier GEO communications satellites. As of March 2013, the Long March 3B and 3B/E have conducted 21 successful launches, with two other launches ending in partial or complete failure. The Long March 3B was the basis for the medium-capacity Long March 3C, which was first launched in 2008.
Read more about Long March 3B: History, Design and Variants
Famous quotes containing the words long and/or march:
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—Amelia Bloomer (1818–1894)
“At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird’s cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)