CASC

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC, 中国航天科技集团公司), founded in 1999 as a restructuring of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry, is China's primary state-owned space enterprise and the main contractor for virtually all of China's government space programs — manufacturing the Long March family of launch vehicles, Shenzhou crewed spacecraft, Tianhe space station modules, lunar exploration vehicles, and China's major civilian and military satellites.

CASC's Long March rocket family spans 13+ variants covering the complete payload spectrum from the 200 kg Long March 11 solid small-lift to the 25+ tonne LEO Long March 5 (China's heaviest operational rocket, used for Chang'e 5 lunar sample return and Tianwen-1 Mars mission). Long March 3B and 3C are workhorse GEO launchers for Chinese and commercial communications satellites; Long March 2F is the dedicated human spaceflight vehicle for Shenzhou crewed missions and Tianzhou cargo resupply to the Chinese Space Station (CSS/Tiangong). Long March 5B is the large module launcher for Tianhe core module and Wentian/Mengtian experiment modules.

CASC spacecraft achievements include: Chang'e 3 (2013, first lunar soft landing since 1976), Chang'e 4 (2019, first far-side of Moon landing), Chang'e 5 (2020, first lunar sample return since 1976, 1.73 kg collected), Tianwen-1 (2021, Mars orbiter + lander + rover Zhurong), and the Chinese Space Station operational since 2021 with permanent crew rotation. The Shenzhou and CSS programs now conduct regular 6-month crew missions with three taikonauts.

CASC also manufactures the DFH and Shijian series of communications and weather satellites, BeiDou navigation constellation satellites (35-satellite global system comparable to GPS), and reconnaissance/Earth observation satellites for the Chinese military. Annual CASC launch cadence exceeds 40 missions, making it one of the world's most active launch organizations.