China Aerospace Studies Institute PLA Rocket Force

Air University (AU)

An Assessment of People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Survivability Training

In the PLARF’s most recent training exercises, the focus has been on surviving after an attack and still being able to launch successfully. Importance has been placed on enhancing a soldier’s ability to take on multiple roles, so that if one dies others can take over their duties. In each of the

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PLA Rocket Force as a Service: New Team Player or Increasingly Irrelevant?

CASI's Director of Research, Rod Lee, contributed an article titled, "PLA Rocket Force as a Service: New Team Player or Increasingly Irrelevant?", in the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute's 2020 PLA conference volume in Roger Cliff and Roy Kamphausen (eds.), Enabling a More Externally

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PLA Rocket Force Organization- Executive Summary

While recent scholarship has gone a long way toward demystifying China’s missile force, it remains in many ways a poorly understood phenomenon, with an unusually high degree of censorship even by the already strict standards of the PLA. The following is a brief executive summary of a much longer

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Uncovering the Truth Behind the PLA Rocket Force’s August 2021 Missile Launch

On 13 August, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) conducted a live fire missile launch, likely from the 1st Test and Training District in Jilantai. The missiles impacted at least two targets parked on the apron of the runway at the PLARF’s Ruqiang Target Impact Area which is roughly

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PLA Likely Begins Construction of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Silo Site near Hanggin Banner

By mid-May 2021, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) likely began construction of a potential intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo site in Hanggin Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia (approximately at 40.113, 108.104). Images taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 mission

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Assessing People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Missile Brigade Commander Competition – Jianfeng 2021

At the end of March, dozens of People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) Missile Brigade Commandersi competed in a new six-day competition assessment called Jianfeng (剑锋) 2021 at the Rocket Force Command Collegeii in Wuhan. Although the Jianfeng 2021 (JF 2021) competition on the surface is

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China's Ballistic Missile Industry

Along with space and cyber, the missile forces of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Liberation Army have seen the greatest increase in importance, and funding, over the last two decades. This progress was further emphasized when, as part of the 2015 reforms, the Second Artillery was

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China’s Recent Ballistic Missile Defense Test May Have Actually Been an Anti-Satellite Test

China’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) publicly announced that People’s Republic of China (PRC) executed a “land-based mid-course missile intercept technology test (路基中段反导拦截技术试验)on 4 February 2021. Although the PRC MND identified this event as a “mid-course missile interception test”,

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First PLA Rocket Force CJ-100 Unit Likely Identified

There is a limited body of evidence that strongly suggests the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) is equipping its 656th Brigade with the CJ-100 cruise missile (alternatively known as the DF-100). This assessment is based on an image of a probable CJ-100 transporter-erector-launcher (TEL)

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PLA Aerospace Power: A Primer on Trends in China's Military Air, Space, and Missile Forces

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to develop rapidly across all aspects, hardware, technology, personnel, and organizational structure, etc. The PLA’s aerospace forces are, in many ways, leading that change. These include the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), PLA

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