The boosters are omitted in the "core only" variant that first flew on its second launch in February 2022.

[1] A planned future launch vehicle variant of the Long March 8 will be partially reusable by featuring a combined booster recovery of the first stage and the boosters as a single unit.

[6] An upgraded version of the Long March 8, the Long March 8A (Chinese: 长征八号甲运载火箭), has successfully debuted on February 11, 2025[7] with increased capability of up to 7 tonnes to a 700 km altitude sun-synchronous orbit.

It implements a larger 3.35 meters diameter liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen second stage, coupled with 2 upgraded version of the YF-75D engines (known as the YF-75H) with increased thrust to 10 tonnes each through measures such as increased turbopump speeds.

The Long March 8A can also use a larger 5.2 meters diameter payload fairing.