Family: Long March
Long March 6A
Launch statistics
- 25
- Launches (as of July 27, 2026)
- 5
- Successes
- 0
- Failures
- 100.0 %
- Success rate
The Long March 6A (CZ-6A within China, LM 6A for export) is a Chinese medium-lift launch vehicle in the Long March family, developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and built by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. It is an evolution of the original Long March 6: it carries two YF-100 engines on the first stage instead of one and adds four strap-on solid rocket boosters. That combination makes it China's first rocket fitted with solid rocket boosters and, so far, the only one in the family to combine solid and liquid propulsion in a single vehicle. The first stage burns kerosene and liquid oxygen; the second uses a YF-115 engine with the same propellant pair. At 50 metres tall — 52 with the extended fairing — and 3.35 metres in diameter, it can place about 8000 kg into low Earth orbit, 6500 kg into a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit and 5000 kg to 700 km. A shorter boosterless variant, the Long March 6C, also exists. The vehicle is active and flies from Launch Area 9A at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. Its routine workload consists of remote-sensing satellites and, above all, batch deployments of the Chinese Qianfan and Guowang megaconstellations. Its record carries one known problem: several of its upper stages have fragmented in orbit after completing their missions, generating significant amounts of space debris.
History
From one engine to four boosters
The Long March 6A emerged as a further development of the Long March 6, a light kerolox launcher. The step up in performance came from doubling the first-stage YF-100 engines and adding four FG-112 solid boosters, each 15.1 metres long and 2 metres in diameter. It was the first rocket in the Long March family to use solid boosters, a hybrid architecture that remains exceptional in the Chinese catalogue.
Debut at Taiyuan
The maiden flight took place on 29 March 2022 and reached orbit successfully, carrying the Pujiang-2 and Tiankun-2 satellites. It was also the inaugural use of Launch Complex 9A, newly built at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, which has since been the only pad used by the vehicle.
From a measured pace to constellation cadence
The early years saw moderate activity, with two flights in 2022 and two in 2023, devoted to Yunhai, Yaogan and Tianhui satellites. The turning point came in August 2024, when the 6A began launching batches of 18 Qianfan satellites for the G60 project into polar orbits. From 2025 it alternated those flights with batches of five Guowang constellation satellites, and the pace surged: ten launches in 2025. Through 4 July 2026 it had accumulated 25 missions, all successful.
The space debris problem
After the Yunhai-3 launch of 11 November 2022, the rocket's upper stage broke up into more than 50 trackable pieces, a figure that later grew to more than 781 objects, when the stage was meant to re-enter in one piece and burn up. Similar events were observed after the launches of March, July and August 2024. The cause has not been established with certainty, but it may relate to upper-stage passivation or insulation.
Launch timeline
| Date | Launch site | Outcome | Payload |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 30, 2026, 1:00 AM | Launch Complex 9A | Success | 2 Chinese classified satellites claimed to be for communication technology test purposes. Actual mission not known. |
| Jul 4, 2026, 9:30 AM | Launch Complex 9A | Success | 18 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with funding backed by the Shanghai local government. Initial constellation will consist of 1296 satellites by 2027 with long term plans to expand it to 12000 satellites. |
| Jun 4, 2026, 11:39 AM | Launch Complex 9A | Success | 18 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with funding backed by the Shanghai local government. Initial constellation will consist of 1296 satellites by 2027 with long term plans to expand it to 12000 satellites. |
| May 12, 2026, 11:59 AM | Launch Complex 9A | Success | 18 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with funding backed by the Shanghai local government. Initial constellation will consist of 1296 satellites by 2027 with long term plans to expand it to 12000 satellites. |
| Apr 8, 2026, 7:38 PM | Launch Complex 9A | Success | A batch of 5 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Chinese state owned SatNet constellation operated by the China Satellite Network Group. The constellation will eventually consists of 13000 satellites. |
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