Long March 5

The Long March 5 or CZ5 (Chang Zheng 5) is the largest rocket that China has ever built, with a 5.2-meter diameter and almost 57 meters (187 feet) in height needed a brand-new launch center on Hainan Island, at the southern tip of China.

Plan is to orbit the Tiangong-2 spacelab, slated to go up in Sept 2016 (was 2015).

The booster is essential to the eventual Chinese space station, sometimes referred to as Tiangong-3.

The maximum payload capacity of the system is about 25 metric tons in Earth's low orbit and 14 tons in the geosynchronous orbit.

Long March-5 Maiden Launch 3 Nov 2016

The Long March-5 Y4 will launch the country's first Mars probe by the second half of the year, and the Long March-5 Y5 will send the Chang'e-5 lunar probe to the Moon, returning with moon surface samples as the highlight of the mission.

Long March 5B

The Long March 5B variant is designed for launching the Space Station to LEO.

The first test launch of the 5B on 5th May 2020 that also plans to test an uncrewed new generation spacecraft capsule capable of flying up to 6 astronauts, this new capsule will also be capable of flying astronauts to the Moon.

Long March-5B maiden flight launch

The first Long March-5B launch vehicle was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center, Wenchang, Hainan Province, China, on 5 May 2020, at 10:00 UTC (18:00 local time). The rocket launched China’s new-generation crewed spacecraft (CMS) on a test mission. CMS is designed to be reusable and it can carry both astronauts and cargo. After a flight of 488 seconds, the payloads separated with the rocket body, and went into designated orbit. It also launched an inflatable cargo lander test spacecraft.

Using liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen and kerosene, weighed 849 tons at launch and has a take-off thrust of around 1,078 tons, enabling it to carry payloads no less than 22 tons into LEO. The engines of the rocket are also new models. Two YF-77 hydrogen oxygen engines were installed in the core stage, and two YF-100 kerosene and liquid oxygen engines were installed for each of the four boosters.

LM5B with 4 YF-100 engine Boosters

Long March-5B possesses the largest payload fairing among all Chinese carrier rockets to date, with a height of 20.5 meters - as tall as a six-story building - and a diameter of 5.2 meters to enable the launching of the core cabin and lab cabins of the future space station into LEO.

One-and-a-half stage

The Long March-5B(LM-5B or CZ-5B) carrier rocket with one core stage and four 3.35-meter-diameter boosters - which is known as a half stage - makes it the first heavy-lift rocket with liquid rocket propellant that has adopted such a one-and-half stage to the orbit technology in China,

The one-and-a-half mode also means better cost efficiency, and would remarkably increase the rocket system's reliability as the fewer stages, the simpler the complexity of the system would be. And the reduced time of stage separation also lowers the chance of malfunctions.

China’s new-generation crewed spacecraft (CMS)

A reusable Capsule modular design to fly up to 10 times. At nine meters long and can hold as many as seven astronauts.

The thermal-protective coating and be reapplied after being burned-out during re-entry.

although it is smaller than the USA's Orion capsule it is more capable and also has a larger delta V enabling it to get to lunar orbit using the LM-5B rocket.

China’s new crewed spacecraft is getting ready for launch

The 8.8-meter-long, 21.6-ton uncrewed prototype spacecraft will use its own propulsion to raise its orbit to an apogee of around 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles).

It will then attempt a high-speed reentry to test new heat shielding. The mission also will test avionics, performance in orbit, parachute deployment, a cushioned airbag landing, and recovery.

Reentry is expected May 8 following on-orbit testing.