As part of China's ambitious space program goals, including building a manned space station by 2022, its next generation carrier rockets will use pollutant-free propellants starting 2015, according to a top state space scientist.

According to Lei Fanpei who is the chairman of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, their future rockets will be utilizing fuels that are a combination of liquid oxygen and diesel along with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen within the next two years.

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These will include the Long March-5 and a smaller Long March-7 carrier rockets that will take some 15 years to apply these changes to all the Long March rocket technology.

The Long March-5 will possess a payload capacity of 25 tons that can carry capsules and spacecrafts at lower Earth orbit. However, it can also carry 14 tons during a cargo transfer in orbit which is twice the capacity of other current spacecrafts that could be a worthy contender to NASA's Delta-4H rocket. 

When the planned space station is up and running by 2022, the Long March-7 can transport 13.5 tons of scientific payload where its first test flight is slated for next year.

Last Sunday, the CBERS-4 satellite was successfully launched via a Long March booster rocket where its primary mission is to monitor, plan and manage land from space and also for forestry, water conservation efforts including environmental protection and extended agriculture.

China has been utilizing Long March rocket technology since April 1970 where China's first satellite, Dongfanghong-1 was successfully launched into space on top of a Long March booster rocket. The CBERS-4 marks the 200th spaceflight mission using the Long March rocket.

Long March carrier rockets were first developed and conceived in 1956 where they have become the main carriers of China's satellites and spacecraft launches. To date, there are 250 space missions that have already been successfully catapulted into space.

According to Lei Fanpei, Long March rockets will continue to launch 100 more space missions in the next seven years.

Out of the first 100 rocket launches, only seven of them were failures. During the next 100 launches that started in 2007, the failure count has been minimized to only two which has proven to be the best space safety record when it comes to mission launches as opposed to U.S. and Russia. 

TagsCBERS-4, long march rockets, china space missions, china mars mission, Mars, chinese rover on mars, pollutant free rocket fuel, China Will Use Pollutant-Free Rocket Fuel Starting 2015