China launched a Long March-8 carrier rocket on Tuesday in south China's Hainan Province, sending 18 internet satellites into space.

The rocket blasted off at 9:32 p.m. from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site. It successfully placed the payloads, the seventh batch of networking satellites for the Qianfan Constellation, into preset orbit.

The Long March-8 series rocket is set to enter a high-density launch mode this year, promoting the construction of China's low-Earth orbit satellite internet constellation. 

Tuesday's mission was the 636th launch of the Long March series of rockets.

(With input from Xinhua)