Commander on Long March-2F carrier rocket's development in 20 years

China has made important progress in developing its Long March-2F carrier rocket for the country's manned space program over the past two decades, with the vehicle able to carry out routine launch operations in much short intervals, according the commander in chief of the carrier rocket project.

Jing Muchun, the commander, recalled that back when the Long March-2F, part of China's Long March 2 rocket family, undertook the Shenzhou-6 manned spaceflight mission in 2005, the launch procedures would cost more than two months. After 20 years of development, the carrier rocket is able to operate at a regular interval of just one month -- half of the time it used to took -- for manned spaceflights.

"The standard procedure [for rocket launch] has been shortened to just one month, or about 30 days, now. Additionally, under our current workflow, we have one standby rocket, which means we have two carrier rockets at the launch site. We now have a routine 'Earth-space transportation system' in place, which functions like a shuttle service operating one time in the first half of the year and the other in the second half. It's fair to say that we're getting better both in term s of procedure and technology," said Jing.

During the past two decades, China's manned space program has advanced from short-duration spaceflights to much longer missions to support the operations of its space station, Jing said, noting that years of extensive upgrades for the Long March-2F carrier rocket has been instrumental in making this happen.

"We always uphold the principle of prioritizing human safety in the crewed space mission. These principles have remained unchanged since we put them forward, that it, we will never waver in our commitment to advancing, in keeping the standards of, and in fulfilling the requirements for, the crewed space mission," he said.

The Long March-2F carrier rocket is scheduled to send yet another Chinese crew -- the Shenzhou-21 astronaut trio -- to space at 23:44 Friday (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

Commander on Long March-2F carrier rocket's development in 20 years

The Caixin Robotics Industry Index (RII) was released at the Inaugural AI High-Quality Development Conference held in Hangzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province, on Saturday.

The index, a comprehensive benchmark dedicated to the robotics sector, reached 125.1 last month, up nearly 25 percent from two years ago.

According to Caixin, Beijing topped the city robotics industry index, which measures the share of robotics-related industrial inputs in a city's overall economic inputs.

Nanjing, Xi'an, Hangzhou, and Suzhou also ranked among the top five.

In 2025, China produced more than 770,000 industrial robots and over 18 million service robots, with output expected to continue rising in the years ahead.

The climb of the index comes as robotics has been elevated in China's national planning, underscoring the sector's growing role in industrial transformation and future economic strategy, according to Wang Zhe, senior economist with the Caixin Insight, the compiler of the index.

"The robotics industry was mentioned in both the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), and the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) . Over the past five years, this industry has fully developed. From these two plans, we can see that the position of this sector has been upgraded. Five years ago, robots were just part of manufacturing upgrades, but now and looking ahead to the next five years, robotics, alongside many other emerging industries, is poised to grow into a pillar industry for China," said Wang.

Climb of robot industry index point to industrial growth