On Wednesday, China became the third country to conduct a sea-based space launch when it sent a Long March 11 rocket into orbit carrying experimental tech and five commercial satellites.
The rocket, also named “CZ-11 WEY,” blasted off from a platform in the Yellow Sea built from a modified drilling rig off the coast of the Shandong province. The launch platform itself was announced in a government press release earlier this week. In that initial June 3 release, China’s State Council said the launch would happen by the end of the year.
“This mission was initially intended as a technological demonstration of a seaborne launch, but we later decided to make it a commercial operation,” Long March program manager Li Tongyu was quoted as saying in an official Chinese government media release.
The world’s first sea launch happened back in 1967 when a United States carrier rocket was launched off ...
