China has launched its largest and most impressive aircraft carrier to date. The Type-003 carrier rivals U.S. Navy carriers in size, the first non-American carrier to do so.

Open source intelligence (OSINT) confirms that the carrier, named Fujian, was launched on June 17 in Shanghai, China. Naval News has been following its construction before the launch and has observed leading indicators

The Type-003 is comparable in size to the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz and Ford classes. And it’s design is similar in many ways. At the same time, it is an evolution of the first two Chinese Navy (PLAN) carriers. These were built on Soviet technology.

The first, Type-001 Liáoníng (CV-16) is the former Kuznetsov class carrier, Varyag. The then-unfinished ship was sold to China as scrap in 1998, where it was completed and entered Chinese service in 2012. The second carrier, Type-002 Shandong (Cv-17), is a locally built ship. It features many small improvements over the first boat but is equivalent on overall terms.

The most visible difference in the Type-003 is the switch from ski jump to catapults. The older carriers launched aircraft under their own power of a ramp at the front of the flight deck. The Type-003 will have three catapults, like U.S. Navy carriers.