Li noted that in the early years of China’s space industry, engineers took several months to build and check a rocket before its flight and they could produce only a handful of rockets each year. Now, the nation can construct and launch 40 rockets annually.

In 2018 alone, China made 39 orbital launches, exactly the same number of the nation’s total space missions in the entire 1990s, marking the first time China has launched more rockets into orbit than any other country in a year. Among them, 37 were done by Long March models.

He also added that the Long March 1 was able to carry only 300 kilograms of payload, which just allowed the lift of a small satellite. After developments over the past nearly half-century, the Long March 5, the biggest and strongest in the family, is capable of carrying as much as 25 metric tons of payload, earning it the honor to transport the nation’s first manned space station into orbit.

Li said that Long March rockets maintain a 96 percent success rate.