Long March 3

Not to be confused with Long March 3 rocket family.

Long March 3

Long March 3
Function	Carrier rocket
Manufacturer	CALT
Country of origin	People's Republic of China
Size
Height	43.25 metres (141.9 ft)[1]
Diameter	3.35 metres (11.0 ft)[1]
Mass	204,000 kilograms (450,000 lb)[1]
Stages	3
Capacity
Payload to LEO	5,000 kilograms (11,000 lb)[2]
Payload to GTO	1,340 kilograms (3,000 lb)[2]
Associated rockets
Family	Long March
Derivatives	Long March 3A
Launch history
Status	Retired
Launch sites	LC-1, XSLC
Total launches	14
Successes	11
Failures	1
Partial failures	2
Maiden flight	29 January 1984
Last flight	25 June 2000

The Long March 3 (Chinese: 长征三号火箭), also known as the Chang Zheng 3, CZ-3 and LM-3, was a Chinese orbital carrier rocket. It was launched from Launch Complex 1 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre. It was a 3-stage rocket, and was mostly used to place DFH-2-class communications satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbits. It first flew on 29 January 1984. It was replaced by the more powerful Long March 3A, which has an improved third stage.

The Long March 3 suffered third stage reliability issues. The upper stage failed to ignite on two launches, and cut off early on a third.

On 15 February, 1996, the Long March 3B rocket carrying Intelsat 708 failed at launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The rocket veered off course immediately after launch, crashing in the nearby village only 22 seconds later and destroying 80 houses. According to official Chinese reports 6 deaths and 57 injuries resulted from the incident; third-party accounts estimated 100 fatalities.^[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Mark Wade. "CZ-3". Encyclopedia Astronautica. http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/cz3.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-27. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Gunter Krebs. "CZ-3 (Chang Zheng-3)". Gunter's Space Page. http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau_det/cz-3.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-27. 
3. ^ Select Committee of the United States House of Representatives (3 January 1999). "Satellite Launches in the PRC: Loral". U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. http://www.house.gov/coxreport/body/ch6bod.html. Retrieved 16 April 2011. 

External Links

• Video of disastrous launch failure