First Long March 7 may launch at the end of the year

[xenomorph555]

Some Chinese speakers at the 27th planetary conference held in Beijing this year said that the first Long March 7 rocket will be launched from Wenchang later this year, probably in December. The rocket will apparently be carrying a Tianzhou (station cargo ship) mockup with very little function.

Now I have no idea if this is real or not but here is some info on the subject:

LM-7 was scheduled to fly this year but was moved back (not pushed back by delays) to 2015 so it could fly with LM-5 which was heavily delayed.

The LM-7 itself is pretty much complete and tested. It has been ready for quite a few months.

Wenchang has been finished since about 2 months ago, since the start of the year they have been practising for a LM-7/Tianzhou launch. As of right now it is a rocket site with no rockets.

Design and all other paper/political/budget work for Tianzhou was completed in the summer with construction and testing beginning shortly after.

To be honest this does sound very realistic but I cannot be certain that it is, we will just have to see.

[ANWRocketMan]

I'm really excited for China's space program. Can't wait for Long March 9. Should be good to have a competitor for the Delta-IV Heavy. It's good news for future space missions into deep space with probes and live(human preferably) cargo.

[Kryten]

LM-9 isn't an approved project yet. Are you thinking of LM-5?

[xenomorph555]

Considering he mentioned the Delta 4 heavy, probably lm-5

[ANWRocketMan]

I might be confused with my names and designations here. LM-9 is just a case study as far as I know for a super-heavy lift vehicle comparable to SLS Block II. Talking about the Delta IV Heavy I was referencing the LM -5.

Sorry, I tend to have bad structure in my sentence orders so that they don't make sense.

Edited October 22, 2014 by ANWRocketMan

[B787_300]

Can someone drop links in? i personally have never heard of the Lm 5 or 9

[xenomorph555]

LM-5 is a 25 tonnes to leo medium-heavy lifter in construction to fly next year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_5

LM-9 is a moon rocket class 100 tonne lifter that has been in design and planning for many years now but not funded although actual work is going into the engines.