China on Sunday launched a Smart Dragon-3 (also known as Jielong-3) carrier rocket from waters near the eastern province of Shandong, sending a new group of satellites into a preset orbit.

The rocket, carrying the satellite group CentiSpace 02, blasted off at 11:49 p.m. from the sea near the Haiyang City.

The offshore launch mission was conducted by the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.

The rocket is a four-stage solid-propellant commercial rocket developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. It is mainly used for deploying spacecraft into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) and low-Earth orbit. It can deliver 1,500 kilograms of payload to an SSO at an altitude of 500 kilometers.

Sunday's launch marked the 10th flight mission of the rocket.