Taiyuan Credit - © Mark Wade

China's launch site for launch of polar orbiting satellites, also known as Wuzhai. Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) is situated in Kelan County, the northwest part of Shanxi Province, 280 km by road from Taiyuan City. The head office of the launch center is located in Taiyuan City. TSLC has two feeder railway that connect with Ningwu-Kelan railway, which crosses the launch center and joins Northern Tongtu railway at Ningpu County. Highways lead to all TSLC sites. Taiyuan Airport is 300 km by road from the launch site and can accept jumbo aircraft. TSLC is primarily used to launch meteorological satellites, earth resource satellites and scientific satellites. It consists of the Technical Center, the Mission Command and Control Center. Telemetry, Tracking, and Communications Systems, and necessary technical and logistic support systems. TSLC is located in a temperate zone, with an elevation of 1,400km to 1,900km above sea level. It is cool in summer. Aside from the space launches, the facility is also used for missile tests. Several valleys leading north and south from the rail line shelter a number of IRBM/ICBM launch pads.

Taiyuan was known to have been used for 46 launches from 1985 to 2007.

• LC1 - Latitude: 39.1432 deg. Longitude: 111.9674 deg. Used by: CZ. First Launch: 1988-09-06. Last Launch: 2006-10-23. Number Launches: 20. Pad 1

1980 February 15 - Launch Vehicle: CZ. Last DF-5 partial range test. Other sources do not list this test.

1985 May 1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 500 km (310 mi).

1987 September 1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Agency: PRC. Apogee: 500 km (310 mi).

1988? - Launch Vehicle: DF-15. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 100 km (60 mi).

1992 April 29 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. FAILURE: Failure. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 0 km ( mi).

1992 May 1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. FAILURE: Failure. Agency: PRC. Apogee: 0 km ( mi).

1993? - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. FAILURE: Failure. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 0 km ( mi).

1995 May 29 - Launch Vehicle: CZ-1. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

1995 July 1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 500 km (310 mi).

1995 November 10 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

1996 January 10 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

1996 December 28 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

1997 November 1 - Launch Vehicle: CZ-1. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

1999 August 2 - Launch Vehicle: DF-31. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2000 November 4 - Launch Vehicle: DF-31. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2000 December 16 - Launch Vehicle: DF-31. Test mission Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2002 January 3 - 12:15 GMT - Launch Vehicle: CZ-1. FAILURE: Launch vehicle failure. CZ-1 Missile Technology Test Agency: PRC. Apogee: 100 km (60 mi). Chinese People's Liberation Army test launch with dummy warhead. Suborbital - failure. Delayed from early November 2001.

2002 July 1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. DF-21 Decoy test Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2002 September 15 - 10:30 GMT - Launch Vehicle: KT. FAILURE: Second stage failure. HTSTL-1 Mass: 50 kg (110 lb). Agency: Tsinghua University (China). First attempted launch of the all-solid-propellant KT-1 launch vehicle. The 50 kg test satellite, built by university students, was to have been placed in a 300 km polar orbit.

2002 November 23 - Launch Vehicle: DF-31. Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2002 December 1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. DF-21 Decoy test Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2003 September 16 - Launch Vehicle: KT. FAILURE: Fourth stage failed to ignite. Kaituozhe 1 Mass: 40 kg (88 lb). Second attempted launch of KT-1. The launch was intended to place a 40 kg microsatellite called PS-2 into a 300 x 300 km polar orbit.

2004 Q1 - Launch Vehicle: DF-21. Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2006 September 4 - Launch Vehicle: DF-31. DF-31 test Agency: PRC. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi).

2007 April 11 - 03:27 GMT - Launch Vehicle: CZ. LV Model: CZ-2C . Chang Zheng 2C CZ2C-29 (96) Haiyang 1B Spacecraft: HY-1. Agency: CASC. Perigee: 782 km (485 mi). Apogee: 815 km (506 mi). Inclination: 98.60 deg. Period: 100.80 min. Oceanographic satellite equipped with a 10-band ocean color scanner, a 4-band CCD imager with 250-meter resolution, and an infrared water profile radiometer.

2007 September 19 - 03:26 GMT - Launch Vehicle: CZ. LV Model: CZ-4B . Chang Zheng 4B CZ4B (102) CBERS-2B Spacecraft: ZY. Perigee: 773 km (480 mi). Apogee: 775 km (481 mi). Inclination: 98.50 deg. Period: 100.30 min. Third China-Brazil joint earth resources satellite. Much higher resolution optics and multispectral sensors expected to be useful for some military applications as well. The satellite raised its orbit to its operational altitude of 773 km two days after launch.

2007 November 11 - 22:48 GMT - Launch Vehicle: CZ. LV Model: CZ-4C . Chang Zheng 4C CZ4C (104) Yaogan 3 Mass: 2,700 kg (5,900 lb). Spacecraft: Yaogan. Perigee: 628 km (390 mi). Apogee: 629 km (390 mi). Inclination: 97.80 deg. Period: 97.30 min. The military launch used a new version of the CZ-4 booster. The CZ-4C includes a restart capability in the upper stage and a new interstage adapter between the first and second stages.