China on Saturday June 25, 2016 successfully blasted off its new generation launch vehicle  Long March-7 from a new space launch center in Wenchang, Hainan province, and the re-entry module returned to Earth on Sunday afternoon.

The launch vehicle's payload, including the YZ-1A upper stage and six different payloads, separated from the rocket 603 seconds after blast-off, and entered an oval orbit with a perigee of 200 kilometers, and a apogee of 394 kilometers.

The Long March-7 is a medium-sized launch vehicle using environment friendly liquid propellant, i.e. liquid oxygen and kerosene, that can carry up to 13.5 tonnes to low-Earth orbit. LM-7 is a two stage launcher with four strapped on boosters. Its lift off mass is 597 tones. It will transport cargo for China's planned space station.

Saturday's launch is the first by the Wenchang launch site, and the 230th of China's Long March carrier rocket family. Its mission is to verify the design and performance of the new launch vehicle, to evaluate mission execution capacity of the Wenchang launch site, and to check coordination and compatibility of project-related systems.

LM-7 launch vehicle is developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), subordinated to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
Wenchang Satellite Launch Center will be used to launch satellites, low and medium earth orbit spacecrafts, large space stations and deep-space probes. In the next few years, the Chang'e-5 lunar probe and modules of China's space station will also be launched from here.

Date:2016-06-27