The first flying CZ-3 vehicle was delivered to Xichang on the new year′s day of 1984. The launch was originally scheduled in the evening of 26 January.
However, the final examination of the launch vehicle on the pad identified a fault with the its inertial guidance platform. The satellite and payload fairing had to
be removed from the launch vehicle in order to allow the faulty platform to be replaced. This delayed the launch by three days.
At 20:24 CST on 29 January 1984, the CZ-3-Y1 launch vehicle carrying the DFH-2-01 communications satellite blasted off from Launch Complex 3 of the Xichang
Satellite Launch Centre. The first- and second-stage of the rocket worked normally. The third-stage ignited and shut down as scheduled, but failed to re-ignite after
entering the 400 km initial parking orbit. As a result, the satellite was placed into an elliptical orbit (apogee: 64,800 km; perigee: 400 km) instead of the GEO.
Despite the failure, the ground control was able to test the positioning and data transmission with the satellite on the wrong orbit.
