The Long March 4B (), also known as the Chang Zheng 4B, CZ-4B and LM-4B is a Chinese expendable orbital

Launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...

. Launched from Launch Complex 1 at the

Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) also known as ''Base 25'' (), is a People's Republic of China space and defense launch facility (spaceport). It is situated in Kelan County, Xinzhou, Shanxi Province and is the second of four launch ...

, it is a 3-stage launch vehicle, used mostly to place satellites into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

and

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

s. It was first launched on 10 May 1999, with the

FY-1C Fēngyún (FY, ) are China's meteorological satellites. Launched since 1988 into polar sun-synchronous and geosynchronous orbit, each three-axis stabilized Fengyun satellite is built by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) and op ...

weather satellite, which would later be used in the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test. The Chang Zheng 4B experienced its only launch failure on 9 December 2013, with the loss of the

CBERS-3 China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite 3 (CBERS-3), also known as Ziyuan I-03 or Ziyuan 1D, was a remote sensing satellite intended for operation as part of the China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program between the Chinese Center for R ...

Launch Statistics

List of launches

See also

References