China Launches Its First Satellite

In April 1970, China launched Dong Fang Hong 1 ("The East Is Red"), its first artificial satellite, into Earth orbit. The launch made China the fifth country to place a satellite in orbit using its own rocket, after the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and Japan. It showed that China, then politically isolated and economically strained, had mastered the rocketry needed for both space exploration and long-range missiles.

China's space effort grew out of the Cold War. After the Soviet Sputnik launch in 1957, Mao Zedong and other leaders expressed interest in a Chinese satellite, and in the late 1950s the country began early planning. Much of the technical foundation was laid by Qian Xuesen, a Chinese-born scientist who had worked in the United States on rocketry before being forced out in the 1950s amid anti-communist suspicion. Back in China, he became a central figure in building the missile program. Early Soviet help ended as relations between Beijing and Moscow broke down around 1960, so later progress relied largely on domestic effort. The Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, disrupted research and persecuted many scientists, though key defense projects received some protection.

The satellite was launched on a Long March 1 rocket from the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi Desert. It was a roughly spherical, multi-faceted craft, heavier than the first satellites of the other early space powers, weighing a bit over 170 kilograms. It carried a transmitter that broadcast the melody of the song "The East Is Red," a patriotic tribute to Mao, along with telemetry. Observers on the ground could hear the signal, and the satellite was bright enough to be seen from Earth, which gave the launch strong symbolic value at home and abroad.

The success was presented as a triumph of self-reliance and was celebrated in state media. Its practical meaning was also military: the Long March 1 drew on ballistic missile technology, and the launch demonstrated capabilities relevant to China's nuclear deterrent, which had begun with a first nuclear test in 1964. Western governments noted the achievement with concern as well as interest.

Dong Fang Hong 1 began a long-running program. The Long March family of rockets became the backbone of China's launches, and later milestones included recoverable satellites, the first Chinese astronaut in orbit in 2003, space stations, and robotic missions to the Moon and Mars. April 24 is now commemorated in China as Space Day.