Long March 3A

The Long March 3A is a Chinese expendable launch vehicle developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the state-owned main contractor for the Chinese space program. It belongs to the Long March 3 subfamily within the broader Long March rocket family, a line of launch vehicles whose first flight dates back to 24 April 1970. The Long March 3A made its own maiden flight on 8 February 1994, placing it among the earlier members of the Long March 3 branch of the family. According to SpaceRocket's database, the vehicle remains in active service, continuing a program line that CASC has operated for several decades as part of China's national space launch capability.

The Long March 3A stands 52.5 meters tall with a core diameter of 3.35 meters, and it has a launch mass of 240 tonnes. In terms of payload capability, the vehicle is rated to deliver up to 2,300 kilograms to geosynchronous transfer orbit, which is the primary mission profile recorded for it in SpaceRocket's database; no low Earth orbit capacity figure is recorded for this configuration. The rocket is not reusable: it is an expendable vehicle, and no landing attempts, successful or otherwise, are associated with it in the available data. The description field in the database is empty, so no further details about its stage arrangement, engine complement, or propellant choices can be stated here beyond what the recorded dimensions and capacity figures indicate.

The Long March 3A flew for the first time on 8 February 1994. According to SpaceRocket's database, the vehicle has accumulated 27 launches, all of which were successful, with zero recorded failures. No landing attempts have been made or recorded for this vehicle, consistent with its expendable design. It should be noted that no individual launches of this vehicle are recorded in SpaceRocket's database yet, so the aggregate totals cannot be broken down by mission, date, or payload at this time. Taken at face value, the compiled statistics describe a vehicle with a perfect success record across more than two dozen flights, a tally that places the Long March 3A among the more reliable members of the Long March family as reflected in the available data. Its continued active status, combined with its specialized geosynchronous transfer orbit role, indicates that the configuration has remained a steady component of China's launch fleet since its introduction in the mid-1990s.