V-2 rocket offensive began on 8 September 1944, when "Lehr- und Versuchsbatterie No. 444" () launched a single rocket guided by a radio beam directed at Paris. Wreckage of combat V-2s occasionally contained the transponder for velocity and fuel cutoff. The painting of the operational V-2s was mostly a ragged-edged pattern with several variations, but at the end of the war a plain olive green rocket also appeared. During tests, the rocket was painted in a characteristic black-and-white chessboard pattern, which aided in determining if the rocket was spinning around its longitudinal axis. The original German designation of the rocket was "V2",
Long March (rocket family) to China since 1998. ChinaSat 8, which had been scheduled for launch in April 1999 on a Long March 3B rocket, was placed in storage, sold to the Singapore company ProtoStar, and finally launched on a French rocket in 2008. From 2005 to 2012, Long March rockets launched ITAR-free satellites made by the European company Thales Alenia Space. However, Thales Alenia was forced to discontinue its ITAR-free satellite line in 2013 after the U.S. State Department fined a U.S. company for selling ITAR components. Thales Alenia had long complained that "every satellite nut and bolt" was being ITAR-restricted, and the