China launches another rocket carrier, the 400th from same Long March family

China lifted a Long March 4B carrier rocket on Friday morning to place several technology demonstration satellites into space, marking the 400th launch of the Long March family.

The 16-story-tall rocket blasted off at 8:11 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert, ripping apart the dawn sky with its orange-red flame and echoing thunder, shows a video published by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, maker of the Long March 4B series.

The payloads in the mission – Shijian 6-05 satellites – were also manufactured by the Shanghai academy, and are tasked with spatial environmental survey and new technology demonstration, the academy said in a statement, noting the 400th launch marked a new milestone of the Long March fleet.

In the 400 liftoffs, 252 were carried out by models developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing and 148 by Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. Both of the two academies are subsidiaries of the State-owned space conglomerate China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country's major space contractor.

China launched its first carrier rocket – a Long March 1 that was de facto a modified ballistic missile – in April 1970 to send its first satellite, Dongfanghong 1, or East Red 1, into space. The mission made China the fifth country capable of building and launching its own carrier rocket to reach Earth's orbit.

Since then, the country has developed and launched nearly 20 types of Long March-series rockets, and 11 of them are in active service.

By now, the Long March family has conducted over 92 percent of the nation's total launch missions, deploying more than 700 spacecraft in orbit. The overall success rate of the Long March fleet is 96.25 percent, according to statistics from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.