If you’ve lost count of China’s internet satellite launches, you’re not alone. Sunday’s was the 28th group, lifting off at 10:03am Beijing time from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site on a Long March-8A rocket.
State media says the payloads entered their designated orbit. The China internet satellite launch was also the 674th flight of the Long March rocket series.
What the Long March-8A is built to do?
Long March-8A rockets are built for constellation networks at medium and low orbits in Earth’s atmosphere. It was first launched on February 11, 2025, with the capability of carrying up to seven tonnes of cargo to sun-synchronous orbit.
Its wider nose will allow satellites more space to manoeuvre.
China has the ability to deploy more clusters of satellites per launch due to this payload capability.
China Academy of Space Technology created these satellites. However, the number of satellites that were aboard was not specified in Sunday’s statement. For instance, the 17th cluster of satellites, which was deployed on December 26, 2025, had nine satellites.
The twentieth group was launched on March 13, 2026. Since then, eight other groups were sent up in the period of around seven months. The Long March family also did not stop flying; the 18th group launched in January became the 625th launch in this family, and 49 launches have been carried out since then.
There are supposed to be around 13,000 satellites in the future Chinese constellation. On the occasion of launching the Long March-8A rocket, Reuters stated that Starlink currently has around 7,000 satellites in orbit, and Beijing wanted to rival them in number.
