Long March 2F

The Long March 2F (LM-2F; Chinese: 长征二号F火箭), also known as Chang Zheng 2F (CZ-2F), is a Chinese human-rated two-stage hypergolic-fuelled medium-lift launch vehicle, part of the Long March 2 rocket family. Launching the Shenzhou spacecraft on all 22 flights of the Shenzhou program, it is one of three in-service orbital rockets worldwide to have launched multiple crews, alongside Russia's Soyuz-2 and the US Falcon 9. The Long March 2F is a two-stage version of the Long March 2E rocket, which in turn was based on the Long March 2C launch vehicle. The entire family is based on the Soviet R-2. The rocket is entirely fuelled by the hypergolic mixture of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide. The first stage is powered by four YF-20B engines, as well as four boosters each with one such engine; the second stage uses one YF-24 engine. It is launched from complex SLS at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Long March 2F made its maiden flight on 19 November 1999, with the Shenzhou 1 spacecraft. After the flight of Shenzhou 3, Chinese President Jiang Zemin named the rocket Shenjian (神箭, lit. 'Divine Arrow'). On 15 October 2003, a Long March 2F launched Shenzhou 5, China's maiden crewed mission and achieved its first human spaceflight. Since then, the rocket has launched twenty-one more missions into orbit with the latest being the Shenzhou 23 spacecraft. Since 2021, it provides crew access to the Tiangong space station. The rocket launched the prototype space stations of the Tiangong program: Tiangong-1 (crewed 2012 and 2013) and Tiangong-2 (crewed 2016). The Long March 2F is also the launch vehicle for the clandestine Chinese reusable experimental spaceplane.