WENCHANG, Hainan, April 7 -- China launched a Long March-8 carrier rocket on Tuesday in the southern island province of Hainan, sending 18 internet satellites into space.

The rocket blasted off at 9:32 p.m. (Beijing Time) from the Hainan commercial spacecraft launch site. It successfully placed the payloads, the 7th batch of networking satellites for the Qianfan Constellation, into preset orbit.