China will ramp up production of Long March 8 medium-sized rockets to launch "its answer to Starlink". SpaceNews writes about it.

The publication reminds that the promising Chinese group of Guowang spacecraft should have 13 thousand satellites, for which China is increasing the launch and production capacity of the Long March 8.

So, the construction of new launch pads at the Wenchang cosmodrome, located on the island of Hainan, is already underway, and the production of carriers located nearby is expanding. It is expected that China will be able to produce 50 Long March 8 missiles annually.

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It is noted that the production of the corresponding rocket engines is also expanding, and work is underway to create a more payload version of the rocket, which may be called the Long March 8G. In addition, the possibility of launching Long March 8 from offshore platforms is being studied.

In May 2018, SpaceNews reported that China planned to launch its first rocket with a reusable first stage in 2020. The medium-class launch vehicle Long March 8, designed to launch up to 4.5 tons of payload into a sun-synchronous orbit at a height of 700 kilometers, was named as a prototype for testing reusable technologies.