China beats SpaceX’s launch record

China has launched three of its Long March rockets in a single day, breaking a launch cadence record previously held by SpaceX.

The three rockets lifted off within 19 hours of each other on Tuesday, pushing China’s tally for orbital launches this year to 83.

“The launch mission was a complete success,” the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) said in a statement.

“This was the third successful launch of China’s Long March rockets today, setting a new record of three launches in one day.”

The fastest launch sequence previously recorded was in March 2024, when SpaceX launched three Falcon rockets in the space of 20 hours and 3 minutes.

SpaceX still holds the record for the most orbital launches in a single year, having already surpassed last year’s record of 134 launches. Elon Musk’s company is aiming to complete 178 orbital launches by the end of this year.

China’s record-setting launch cadence comes as the country’s space agency seeks to rapidly expand its orbital infrastructure to become a space superpower.

One of the three launches on Tuesday delivered a batch of internet satellites into low-Earth orbit to join the Guowang constellation. The other two launches were for classified satellites that will be used by the Chinese military.

There are now more than 100 operational Guowang satellites in orbit, with state-owned China SatNet planning to grow the constellation to 13,000 in the coming years.

This will be a similar size to SpaceX’s Starlink network, which already has nearly 9,000 satellites in operation.

China has also built its own space station after it was excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) over US national security concerns.

The Tiangong space station hosted its first crew in 2021 and currently has three crew members on board.

Last month, China launched an uncrewed spacecraft to Tiangong as part of the second stage of a rescue mission to return the astronauts after their original craft’s window was damaged by suspected space debris.