Wenchang City, Hainan Province, south China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of Long March-8 carrier rocket under assembly
2. Long March-8 carrier rocket
3. Various of engineers, Long March-8 carrier rocket
4. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Song Zhengyu, Long March-8 chief designer (ending with shot 5):
"One of the major technical improvements on the maiden flight of the Long March-8 in Wenchang is the design to throttle the thrust of the engine with its first flight core stage. It means a reduced thrust for the return voyage. In short, just like when you are parking a car in the garage, you can't step on the accelerator to make it. So it is kind of a technical verification of the high-thrust engine throttling for the rocket vertical landing and recovery."
5. Various of engineers, Long March-8 carrier rocket
6. Various of Long March-8 carrier rocket under assembly, placed on launch pad
7. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Song Zhengyu, Long March-8 chief designer (starting with shot 6/ending with shot 8):
"We plan to build a small rocket powered by a rocket engine for demonstration and verification next year. Actually, it is not small with a 3.35-meter diameter. It also uses a rocket engine and its legs are the real ones that we will retrieve in the future. The demonstration and verification will target rocket technologies including vertical takeoff and landing, autonomous control, thermal protection, and engine throttling."

FILE: Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, Hainan Province, south China - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
8. Aerial shot of launching site
9. Various of engineers working on rocket

Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, Hainan Province, south China - Dec 22, 2020(CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
10. Long March-8 carrier rocket blasting off

The successful maiden flight of Long March-8 verified the design of the rocket as well as the coordination among the rocket, satellites, the launch site and its measurement and control system, said the chief designer of the rocket.

China's new generation medium-sized launch vehicle Long March-8 made a successful maiden flight from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province on Tuesday, sending five satellites into designated orbit at the same time, according to the China National Space Administration(CNSA).

For the next step, the Long March-8 will carry out the verification of the rocket recovery technology to lay a solid foundation for the country's research and development of reusable launch vehicles, said Song Zhengyu, the chief designer.

The maiden flight of Long March-8 tested a series of key technologies involving online identification of flight failure, autonomous attitude control, and engine thrust adjustment and partially verified the reusable engine technology, he said.

"One of the major technical improvements on the maiden flight of the Long March-8 in Wenchang is the design to throttle the thrust of the engine with its first flight core stage. It means a reduced thrust for the return voyage. In short, just like when you are parking a car in the garage, you can't step on the accelerator to make it. So it is kind of a technical verification of the high-thrust engine throttling for the rocket vertical landing and recovery," Song said.

The Long March-8 will further carry out experimental verification of the reusable rocket technology, improve the rocket's level of intelligence, and accumulate data during flights to make new breakthroughs and realize a leap in the technologies and capacity of China's launch vehicles.

"We plan to build a small rocket powered by a rocket engine for demonstration and verification next year. Actually, it is not small with a 3.35-meter diameter. It also uses a rocket engine and its legs are the real ones that we will retrieve in the future. The demonstration and verification will target rocket technologies including vertical takeoff and landing, autonomous control, thermal protection, and engine throttling," Song said.

With two stages and two boosters, the Long March-8 rocket is a new-type rocket that uses module design and can be prepared in a short time, making it competitive for commercial launch.

It has a payload capacity of over 4.5 tonnes to a 700 km altitude sun-synchronous orbit and 2.8 tons to geostationary transfer orbit, according to the CNSA.

The Long March-8 rocket is estimated to conduct 10 to 20 launches annually after it hits the market, the administration said.