April 24, 1970 - China Launches Its First Satellite Dong Fang Hong 1

On April 24, 1970, China launched its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1, aboard the Long March 1 rocket at 13:35:45 GMT. The 173 kg satellite reached a 441 × 2,286 km orbit just 13 minutes after liftoff. It immediately began broadcasting the revolutionary song "The East Is Red" at 20.009 MHz, turning space itself into a political stage. China became the fifth independent spacefaring nation — and what came next changed everything.

Key Takeaways

• On April 24, 1970, China successfully launched its first satellite, Dongfanghong 1, via a Long March 1 rocket at 13:35:45 GMT.
• The 173 kg satellite exceeded the combined mass of the first satellites launched by the USSR, USA, France, and Japan.
• Dongfanghong 1 broadcast the revolutionary song "The East Is Red" at 20.009 MHz for approximately 15 days before going silent.
• The launch made China the fifth independent spacefaring nation, signaling full satellite capability without foreign assistance.
• The achievement directly inspired China's manned space ambitions, eventually leading to the Shenzhou program and Tiangong space station.

How China Launched Its First Satellite on the Very First Attempt

China's successful launch of Dongfanghong 1 on the very first attempt wasn't an accident — it was the result of meticulous pre-launch preparation. Engineers constructed five identical backup satellites, anticipating potential failures, yet none were needed. Qian Xuesen directed development through CAST, while Sun Jiadong handled technical implementation directly.

Security protocols were stringent throughout the process. Armed personnel stationed between electricity poles guarded the satellite during its train transport to Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, reflecting how seriously officials treated the mission.

When the Long March 1 rocket lifted off at 13:35:45 GMT on April 24, 1970, it achieved orbital insertion just 13 minutes later. Public reaction across China was electric — the nation had just become the world's fifth independent spacefaring power. The satellite's 173 kg mass made it heavier than the combined weight of the first satellites launched by the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and Japan. The satellite followed an elliptical orbit with a perigee of approximately 441 km and apogee of 2,286 km, inclined at 68.4 degrees to the equator. Just two years later, Canada's Anik A1 would demonstrate that geostationary communications satellites could deliver continent-wide telephony and television to remote communities previously dependent on unreliable land-based infrastructure.

What Made the Dong Fang Hong 1 Satellite's Design Unusual

Orbiting 439 kilometers above Earth, Dongfanghong 1 wasn't your typical satellite. Its 72-faced polyhedron shape achieved near-perfect spherical symmetry, giving it an almost ball-like appearance roughly one meter in diameter — strikingly similar to America's Telstar satellite.

Weighing 173 kg, it relied on spin stabilization for attitude control rather than complex thrusters, keeping it oriented without a propulsion system entirely.

What truly set it apart was its onboard tune generator, broadcasting "Dong Fang Hong" at 20.009 MHz using an electronic circuit that mimicked an aluminum plate piano — no tape recorder needed. Engineers built five identical backup satellites anticipating launch failures.

The design team, working with rudimentary equipment under Cultural Revolution disruptions, delivered a satellite that transmitted successfully for 15 days before going silent in June 1970. The third stage of CZ-1 was fitted with a special observation skirt to increase its reflectivity, making it visible to the naked eye at a brightness of magnitude 2 to 3.

Overall satellite design was led by Sun Jiadong, who oversaw the technical development that produced a craft heavier than both the first Soviet satellite at 83.6 kg and the first American satellite at just 8.2 kg.

How the Long March 1 Rocket Carried Dong Fang Hong 1 to Orbit

Standing 29.86 meters tall and weighing 81,600 kilograms at liftoff, the Long March 1 rocket was purpose-built to carry Dongfanghong 1 to orbit, with development beginning in the second half of 1965. Its staged propulsion system drew heavily from Dong Feng-4 missile technology.

The first stage's YF-2A engine generated 124 tons of thrust for roughly two minutes and 10 seconds, while the second stage's single YF-3A engine produced 33 tons for approximately two minutes and six seconds. Both stages burned unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitric acid.

The solid-fueled third stage then ignited using spin stabilization, burning for 38 seconds and generating 18 tons of thrust. This sequence successfully placed Dongfanghong 1 into a 441 by 2,286-kilometer orbit at 68.42-degree inclination on April 24, 1970. The rocket was designed under the leadership of chief designer Wang Xiji, who would later serve as a senior supervisor of China's Shenzhou crewed spacecraft program.

Prior to the era of satellite-based navigation, militaries and civilian users alike depended on ground-based systems like LORAN and Decca that lacked global coverage and could not provide continuous, three-dimensional positioning. The Long March rocket family has continued to evolve significantly since its origins, with the solid-fueled Long March 11 variant demonstrating China's first offshore orbital launch from a floating platform in the Yellow Sea on June 5, 2019.

How Dong Fang Hong 1 Made China the Fifth Nation to Reach Orbit

When Dong Fang Hong 1 reached orbit on April 24, 1970, China became the fifth nation to achieve independent satellite launch capability, joining the Soviet Union, United States, France, and Japan.

You can appreciate how significant this milestone was — China hadn't relied on foreign rockets or assistance, making its achievement entirely self-determined.

The satellite's 173 kg mass exceeded the combined weight of the first satellites launched by the USSR, USA, France, and Japan, amplifying China's geopolitical recognition on the world stage.

This wasn't just a scientific accomplishment; it functioned as technological diplomacy, signaling China's emergence as a serious space power.

Nationwide celebrations reflected the immense national pride this success generated, while the international community acknowledged China's remarkable entry into the exclusive orbital club. The launch was even immortalized in a documentary film titled "The Universe Sings The East is Red", released the same year to capture the historic moment for posterity.

The satellite continuously transmitted "The East is Red", a song originally based on a Shaanxi folk tune whose lyrics were rewritten in the 1940s to praise Mao Zedong, broadcasting the melody to audiences around the world for three weeks. China's space ambitions mirrored a broader global race for technological supremacy, much like the civilian GPS development that began in the 1960s to serve military strategic interests before eventually transforming everyday life.

Why Broadcasting "The East Is Red" Was a Deliberate Political Statement

The choice to broadcast "The East Is Red" from China's first satellite wasn't accidental — it was a calculated political statement embedded in every signal the craft transmitted.

The propaganda symbolism ran deep, and the international signaling was unmistakable. Consider what the broadcast represented:

• Ideological reach: The song reinforced Mao's personality cult globally, projecting revolutionary fever beyond China's borders.
• Cultural authority: Rooted in a Shaanxi folk melody, the lyrics positioned Mao as the "people's great savior" to worldwide audiences.
• Political timing: Launched amid Cultural Revolution tensions, the satellite countered perceived bourgeois influences while unifying domestic thought.

You're witnessing a moment where space technology became pure political theater — Zhou Enlai and Mao's apparatus transforming an orbiting satellite into a ceaselessly broadcasting propaganda tool. During the Cultural Revolution, the song had already served as China's unofficial national anthem, filling a role vacated when the official anthem's author Tian Han was purged.

The song's roots stretched back to 1942, when peasant Li Youyuan composed it from a northern Shaanxi folk tune, gaining widespread popularity during the revolutionary period at Yan'an before eventually being beamed into space aboard China's first satellite. Much like Marconi's 1901 transatlantic transmission, which proved that wireless signals could span thousands of miles and reshaped how the world understood long-distance communication, Dong Fang Hong 1 demonstrated that a single broadcast could carry ideological weight across the entire globe.

How Dong Fang Hong 1 Shaped China's Space Program

Beyond its propaganda value, Dong Fang Hong 1 laid the concrete technical and institutional groundwork that shaped every subsequent chapter of China's space ambitions. The project trained a comprehensive aerospace team, and CAST's organizational structure became the template replicated across future programs. That's space education translated directly into industrial policy, as engineering expertise flowed into communications, remote sensing, and navigation satellite systems.

Qian Xuesen's proposal for a manned space program followed immediately after the successful launch, with Mao Zedong personally approving the undertaking. By September 21, 1992, China formalized its three-step manned space strategy, directly building on DFH-1's achievements. That foundation ultimately enabled the Shenzhou spacecraft program in 1999 and, decades later, space labs Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2. The three-step manned strategy culminated in the launch of the Tianhe core module on April 29, 2021, officially beginning the in-orbit construction of China's permanent Tiangong space station. Today, China's growing orbital presence situates it as a key player in the broader shift toward private and national competition for control of low Earth orbit, a transition accelerated by commercial stations like Haven-1 and Axiom. In March 2016, the Chinese government recognized the enduring legacy of that original 1970 launch by officially designating April 24 as China's Space Day.