Long March rockets still going strong

ON SUNDAY, China launched a Long March 3B carrier rocket into geostationary orbit, marking the 300th launch of the Long March family. Shi Hao, a scientist with the space mission engineering program at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, comments:

Three hundred is a very small number in astronautics, where distances are often measured in millions of kilometers. Yet, when it comes to rocket launches, 300 is a big number because of 96 percent of the launches have been successful, and China has constantly honed its skills.

As "emerging" aerospace powers that emerged after the end of the Cold War and the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the European Space Agency, mainly led by France, has the ability to launch 12 rockets a year, or once a month. Nevertheless, the total number of rocket launches by the ESA is still lower than 300. In other words, China is ahead of Europe in terms of astronautics.