China launched a new communications satellite on Monday, a news report said. The Long March 3B rocket took off as planned from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the south-western province of Sichuan at 0:33 am (1633 Sunday GMT), Xinhua news agency reported. The Zhongxing-1A satellite on board was put into orbit as planned, and was to provide voice communication, broadcast and data transmission services, the report was quoted as saying by the German Press Agency "DPA".