Launch of the first Long March 2E rocket from the Xichang Space Centre, China, on 16 July 1990. The brown gas seen venting from the boosters in dinitrogen tetroxide, the oxidiser. The Long March 2E (LM-2E or CZ-2E) is the most powerful of the LM-2 series. It is a two-stage vehicle, with four strap-on boosters. On this first flight, the LM-2E carried a Pakistani Badr communications satellite and a dummy mass representing the Australian Aussat communications satellite. LM-2E is capable of lifting a 8800 kg payload into a 200 km orbit, the whole rocket has a launch mass of 462 tonnes.