The Long March 4A also known as the Chang Zheng 4A, CZ-4A and LM-4A, sometimes misidentified as the Long March 4 due to the lack of any such designated rocket, was a Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 orbit

Orbit

In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...

al carrier rocket. It was launched from Launch Complex 1 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre. It was a 3-stage rocket, used for two launches in 1988 and 1990. On its maiden flight, on 6 September 1988, it placed the FY-1A weather satellite

Weather satellite

The weather satellite is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be either polar orbiting, seeing the same swath of the Earth every 12 hours, or geostationary, hovering over the same spot on Earth by orbiting over the equator while...

 into orbit. On its second, and final, flight it launched another weather satellite, FY-1B.

It was replaced by a derivative, the Long March 4B

Long March 4B

The Long March 4B , also known as the Chang Zheng 4B, CZ-4B and LM-4B is a Chinese orbital carrier rocket. Launched from Launch Complex 1 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, it is a 3-stage rocket, used mostly to place satellites into low Earth and sun synchronous orbits...

, which first flew in 1999. The Long March 4B offers a more powerful third stage, and a larger payload fairing.