Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center is China's first spaceport, a military-run launch complex in the Gobi Desert founded in 1958 and the country's earliest launch site.[1][2] It launched China's first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, on a Long March 1 rocket on April 24, 1970,[3][4] and its first astronaut, Yang Liwei, aboard Shenzhou 5 on October 15, 2003.[5] Every Chinese crewed mission since has left Earth from the same site; Jiuquan remains the only launch center in the country's human spaceflight program.[6] It is also China's busiest spaceport: 33 of the nation's record 92 orbital launches in 2025 lifted off from Jiuquan, up from 21 the year before and more than from any other Chinese site.[7]

Much of that growth is commercial. The People's Liberation Army, which runs the center, opened it to private rocket companies in September 2018,[8] and Jiuquan has since hosted China's first private orbital launch attempt, in 2018,[9] the first private launch to reach orbit, in 2019,[28] and a dedicated commercial launch district, the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone.[25] On August 19, 2026, LandSpace's Zhuque-3 flew from that zone and landed its first stage about 390 kilometers downrange, the first recovery of an orbital-class booster by a Chinese commercial company.[10][11]

Status as of August 2026

August 2026 gave Jiuquan a national first. On August 19, LandSpace's Zhuque-3 Y2 lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone at 07:35 Beijing time, placed the Honghu-03 satellite in orbit, and set its first stage down on landing legs in Minqin County, Gansu province, about 390 kilometers downrange.[10][11] It was the first orbital-class booster recovery by a Chinese commercial company and the country's first on land.[11] Crewed operations continue on their usual rhythm: the Shenzhou 23 crew launched from Jiuquan on May 24, 2026 and is aboard the Tiangong station, where one member is slated to stay a full year.[12] The commercial zone is filling out. The state-built Long March 12B made an unannounced debut from the zone on June 1, carrying Qianfan broadband satellites,[13] and Galactic Energy's Pallas-1 rocket stood vertical on a newly completed pad in late May awaiting its first flight.[14] Jiuquan's 33 orbital launches in 2025 made it the country's busiest spaceport for the year.[7]

History

Jiuquan's history is older than China's space program. The center was founded in 1958 as the country's earliest launch site,[2] and its first decade belonged to missiles: China's first domestically built surface-to-surface missile flew from the range on November 5, 1960, and the country's first test of a nuclear-armed missile followed on October 27, 1966.[1] Two launch towers built in 1966 and 1971 carried the site into the space age and supported 44 missions between them.[15]

On April 24, 1970, a Long March 1 lifted the Dongfanghong-1 satellite to orbit from the center, making China the fifth country to launch a satellite on its own rocket.[3][4] The date carried enough weight that China's State Council designated April 24 as the country's annual Space Day in 2016.[4] More firsts followed from the same desert pads: China's first recoverable satellite on November 26, 1975, its first long-range carrier rocket in May 1980, a single rocket carrying three satellites to orbit, and, in August 1987, a piggyback payload flown for the French firm Aerospatiale, the center's first launch service for a foreign customer.[1][15] By 1998, 33 satellites had been launched from Jiuquan.[1]

The crewed era began when the uncrewed Shenzhou 1 opened the Shenzhou program in 1999, flying from a launch tower built for the purpose,[6][15] and Shenzhou 5 made the site the departure point for China's first astronaut in 2003.[5] Recognition of the older facilities has followed: the center was named one of China's first ten science and technology tourism bases in March 2017 and added to the country's list of industrial heritage sites in January 2018.[16]

Location and organization

The center sits in the Gobi Desert at the boundary between Jiuquan, the prefecture-level city in Gansu province it is named after, and Ejine Banner in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region; the base community there is known as Dongfeng Aerospace City.[6][16] The European Space Agency and independent launch catalogues place the launch complex itself in Inner Mongolia.[17][18] The facility covers about 2,800 square kilometers and stands about 1,000 meters above sea level in flat, arid country with an annual average temperature of 8.5 degrees Celsius; about 300 days a year are suitable for launches.[1][2] A dedicated branch railway connects the center to the Lanzhou-Urumqi mainline, and Dingxin Airport lies 75 kilometers to the south.[2]

Jiuquan is a military installation. The People's Liberation Army operates it, and after the site opened to private companies its Party chief told Xinhua that Jiuquan was willing to put privately funded missions on its launch agenda.[8]

Transport geography defines what can fly from Jiuquan. Rockets reach the inland site by rail or road: the 3.35-meter diameter of China's older Long March rockets was set by rail loading gauges, and the 4.2- and 4.5-meter commercial vehicles now flying are sized for road convoys to the center.[19] Five-meter stages, the class of the Long March 5 that carries CNSA's Chang'e lunar missions and launched the space station modules, are too large for China's rail, road, and tunnel network; they are built in coastal Tianjin and shipped by sea to the Wenchang site on Hainan island.[19][20] That is why China's largest rockets fly from the coast while Jiuquan handles crews, medium-lift rockets, and most of the commercial fleet.

Launch areas

Jiuquan's active facilities divide into a state launch area, shared solid-rocket pads, and the commercial zone. In Jonathan McDowell's launch log for 2025, the center's flights came from the pads below.[21]

FacilityRocketsRole
Launch Area 4, crewed pad (LC-43/91)Long March 2FEvery Shenzhou crew flight, plus the Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 space labs[5][17][21][22]
Launch Area 4, second pad (LC-43/94)Long March 2C, 2D, 4B, 4CGovernment satellites, mostly to polar and sun-synchronous orbits[21]
Sites 95A and 95BKuaizhou-1A, Kuaizhou-11, Ceres-1, Hyperbola-1Solid-fueled rockets; Ceres-1 flies from a transport erector launcher[21][23]
Site 130Kinetica-1CAS Space's solid rocket, with five launches in 2025[21]
Dongfeng commercial zone padsZhuque-2E, Zhuque-3, Tianlong-2, Long March 12A, Long March 12B, Pallas-1Liquid-fueled commercial and state rockets, each with a dedicated pad[13][14][18][21][30]

The zone's pads were built for propellant variety: Xinhua describes the Dongfeng zone as able to support large, medium, and small rockets burning kerosene, methane, or solid fuel.[25]

Crewed launches

Crewed spaceflight is Jiuquan's signature role. The center is the only one in China for human missions,[6][15] and every Shenzhou spacecraft has launched from the crewed pad at Launch Area 4 on a Long March 2F.[5][21] Shenzhou 5 carried Yang Liwei to orbit at 9:00 a.m. on October 15, 2003; he flew 14 orbits in 21 hours and 23 minutes and landed in central Inner Mongolia, completing China's first human spaceflight.[5] By April 2024, the pad's launch tower had supported more than 20 missions in its 25 years of service and sent 20 Chinese astronauts to space on 32 trips.[15]

The center also launched both of China's early space labs: Tiangong-1, an 8.5-tonne testbed for rendezvous and docking, in September 2011,[17] and Tiangong-2 on September 15, 2016.[22] The full Tiangong station's modules were too large for Jiuquan's rail link and flew from Wenchang,[19][20] but the station's crews still pass through the desert in both directions. Shenzhou flights depart Jiuquan roughly every six months, and China keeps a backup Long March 2F and Shenzhou spacecraft at the center that can be readied in about 8.5 days in an emergency.[26] That arrangement was exercised in late 2025, when debris damage to the docked Shenzhou 20 led China to launch the uncrewed Shenzhou 22 from Jiuquan on November 25, 2025, about six months ahead of schedule, to restore a ride home for the station's crew.[21][26] Returning crews land nearby, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia; the Shenzhou 21 crew touched down there on May 29, 2026.[27]

The commercial launch boom

Commercial rockets turned China's oldest spaceport into its busiest. The People's Liberation Army first opened Jiuquan to private companies in September 2018, and three Beijing startups, OneSpace, iSpace, and LandSpace, each launched a rocket from the center that year.[8] LandSpace's solid-fueled Zhuque-1, launched on October 27, 2018, was the first orbital attempt by a private Chinese company; it fell short of orbit when its third stage lost attitude control.[9] iSpace closed the gap on July 25, 2019, when its Hyperbola-1 became the first privately developed Chinese rocket to reach orbit, also from Jiuquan.[28] Space Pioneer's Tianlong-2 added the next milestone from the center on April 2, 2023: the first liquid-propellant rocket from a Chinese commercial company to reach orbit, on its first try.[18][24] By April 2024, more than 30 commercial rockets from six companies had launched from Jiuquan since 2018.[15]

The Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone concentrates the liquid-fueled side of that traffic. LandSpace flies its Zhuque-2E from the zone[30] and flew the hop tests for its reusable rockets program over Jiuquan in 2024, including a 10-kilometer flight and landing that September.[29] Zhuque-3 launched from the zone on its December 3, 2025 debut, which reached orbit but lost the booster during the landing attempt, and again on August 19, 2026, when the first stage came down intact on its legs in Minqin County, about 390 kilometers away.[10][11] The state joined the district too: CASC's Long March 12A debuted from Jiuquan in December 2025 with a failed recovery attempt and a dedicated landing site downrange, and its Long March 12B first flew from the zone on June 1, 2026.[13][14] Galactic Energy, whose solid Ceres-1 has flown repeatedly from the shared solid-rocket pads, completed the first phase of a Pallas-1 pad in the zone in May 2026.[14][23]

The cadence shows in the totals. Jiuquan hosted 33 orbital launches in 2025 against 21 in 2024, a rise SpaceNews attributes in part to the commercial zone's expansion, and the site out-launched Xichang, Taiyuan, and the Wenchang-Hainan coastal pads that year.[7]

References

  1. Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center - china.org.cn (China Internet Information Center), October 13, 2003.
  2. Launch Site - China Great Wall Industry Corporation.
  3. History of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center - CGTN, April 24, 2024.
  4. China's long march into space - China National Space Administration (Xinhua), April 26, 2016.
  5. Shenzhou V - China Manned Space Agency.
  6. 'Aerospace city' spurs success - China Daily Hong Kong, April 19, 2024.
  7. China caps record year for orbital launches with Tianhui-7 and Shijian-29 technology test missions - SpaceNews, December 31, 2025.
  8. PLA welcomes launches of private rockets - China Daily, February 18, 2019.
  9. Landspace fails to reach orbit with milestone private Chinese launch - SpaceNews, October 27, 2018.
  10. China Focus: China launches Zhuque-3, achieving its first rocket recovery on land - Xinhua, August 19, 2026.
  11. China's Landspace recovers booster with second orbital launch of Zhuque-3 rocket - SpaceNews, August 2026.
  12. Xinhua Headlines: China launches Shenzhou-23 spaceship, for new in-orbit stay record, cutting-edge space science - Xinhua, May 25, 2026.
  13. China conducts surprise launch of Long March 12B, delivers Qianfan satellites on debut flight - SpaceNews, June 1, 2026.
  14. China's latest batch of new and reusable rockets are close to launch - SpaceNews, May 29, 2026.
  15. China's Space Day: Quest of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center - CGTN, April 24, 2024.
  16. Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center - China Daily, November 5, 2019.
  17. Tiangong-1 frequently asked questions - European Space Agency, March 26, 2018.
  18. Tianlong-2 - Gunter's Space Page.
  19. China appears to be developing 7-meter-diameter reusable rockets - SpaceNews, June 23, 2026.
  20. Long March 5 launch blasts China into age of large, powerful rockets - The Planetary Society, November 3, 2016.
  21. Space Activities in 2025 - Jonathan McDowell, planet4589.org, February 4, 2026.
  22. China's Tiangong 2 space lab successfully blasts off - Spaceflight Now, September 15, 2016.
  23. Ceres-1 rocket launches 8 Chinese commercial satellites - SpaceNews, March 17, 2025.
  24. China's Space Pioneer reaches orbit with Tianlong-2 rocket launch (video) - Space.com, April 4, 2023.
  25. China Focus: Tech innovations boost China's commercial space industry - Xinhua, January 10, 2025.
  26. Shenzhou-20 astronauts safely return to Earth on Shenzhou-21 spacecraft after space debris damage concerns - SpaceNews, November 14, 2025.
  27. China's Shenzhou-21 Crew Returns to Earth - SpacePolicyOnline, May 29, 2026.
  28. Chinese iSpace achieves orbit with historic private sector launch - SpaceNews, July 25, 2019.
  29. Landspace completes 10-kilometer reusable rocket test, eyes 2025 orbital launch - SpaceNews, September 2024.
  30. China's commercial aerospace sector enters 'a period of rapid growth' - Global Times, June 2026.