China's most-powerful Rocket ready for Second Flight

China's Long March 5 rocket is targeting launch from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island on Sunday, July 2, 2017 on its second orbital mission, carrying the Shijian-18 satellite. Holding the rank as one of the world's most powerful launch vehicle, Long March 5 debuted in a nail-biting mission in 2016 and is now targeting a smooth countdown & launch to demonstrate its reliability before being cleared for the launch of the Chang'e 5 lunar mission later this year.

Shijian-18 itself tips the scales as one of the heaviest (unclassified) Geostationary Satellites if not the heaviest ever placed into orbit, weighing in at around seven metric tons and debuting the next-generation DFH-5 satellite platform, outfitted with a 70Gbps high-throughput payload.

Live Video by Xinhua