Tag: China
-
China publishes Chang’e 4 data one year after first landing on far side of the moon
The Yutu 2 rover is pictured on the far side of the moon soon after landing in January 2019. This image was taken by a camera on the Chang’e 4 mission’s stationary landing platform. Credit: CNSA/CLEP Chinese officials marked the one-year anniversary of the Chang’e 4 mission’s historic first soft landing on the far side…
-
Long March, Soyuz and Falcon rockets topped 2019’s launch leaderboard
A Soyuz-FG booster lifts off July 20, 2019, with the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft carrying Alexander Skvortsov, Luca Parmitano and Andrew Morgan t the International Space Station. Credit: Roscosmos China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite…
-
Successful Long March 5 launch paves way for new Chinese space missions
China’s third Long March 5 rocket lifts off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center. Credit: CCTV The third launch of China’s heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket successfully delivered its satellite payload to orbit Friday, validating engine design changes after a failure on the Long March 5’s second flight, and clearing the way for the launch…
-
China’s Long March 5 rocket poised for crucial return-to-flight launch
China’s third Long March 5 rocket rolled out to its launch pad Dec. 21 at the Wenchang space center on Hainan Island. Credit: Xinhua China’s Long March 5 rocket — the country’s most powerful launcher — is set for its third flight Friday on a critical validation mission after a core stage engine failure doomed…
-
China launches environmental satellite built in cooperation with Brazil
The sixth in a series of environmental monitoring satellites jointly developed by China and Brazil successfully launched Dec. 20 on top of a Long March 4B rocket. The CBERS 4A Earth observation satellite rode the Long March 4B rocket into a 385-mile-high (620-kilometer) polar sun-synchronous orbit from the Taiyuan space base in northern China’s…
-
China completes core of Beidou global satellite navigation system
A Long March 3B rocket lifts off Monday from the Xichang space base in southwestern China’s Sichuan province. Credit: CASC Two Chinese Beidou navigation satellites successfully launched Monday on top of a Long March 3B rocket, completing the core of China’s independent positioning and timing network ahead of the start of global service next year.…
-
China nears global coverage with the latest launch of Beidou-3M satellites
With the launch Monday of a new pair of navigation satellites, China is one step nearer to achieving global coverage with its navigation satellite system. The launch of Beidou-3M19 (Beidou-52) and Beidou-3M20 (Beidou-53) took place at 07:22 UTC, lofted by the Long March-3BGZ/YZ-1 (Y67/Y15) from the LC3 Launch Complex at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center,…
-
China launches two Kuaizhou rockets in six hours
A Kuaizhou 1A rocket lifts off Saturday from the Taiyuan space base with the Jilin 1 Gaofen 02B Earth-imaging satellite. This was the first of two Kuaizhou 1A rocket launches from Taiyuan in less than six hours. Credit: Xinhua Two solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A rockets fired into orbit from the same spaceport in northern China Saturday,…
-
China launches radar observation satellite
A Long March 4C rocket took off from the Taiyuan space center in northern China at 2352 (6:52 p.m. EST) Wednesday. Credit: Xinhua A new all-weather radar imaging satellite for China’s civilian-oriented fleet of Gaofen Earth observatories launched Wednesday aboard a Long March 4C rocket, according to Chinese state media. The Gaofen 12 radar surveillance…
-
Long March 4C lofts Gaofen-12
China launched a new remote sensing satellite on November 27 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, Shanxi Province. Launch of Gaofen-12 took place at 23:52 UTC from the LC9 launch complex using the Long March-4C (Y24) – Chang Zheng-4C – rocket. The new Earth observation satellite is equipped with a high-resolution Earth observation system. It…