at 11:30:05 UTC on 28 November 1995. The launch had previously been delayed twice, first from December 1994 due to the failure of Telstar 402, which was based on the same satellite bus as AsiaSat 2, and subsequently whilst the Apstar 2 launch failure was investigated.

Since the Long March 2E launch vehicle had experienced two failures in five launches, AsiaSat 2 had to pay a 27% premium for satellite insurance