Tag: China

China launched another commercial satellite mission on Monday, when a Long March 3B/E (Chang Zheng-3B/E) lofted the NigComSat-1R on behalf of Nigeria from the Xixhang satellite Launch Center. The launch – adding to China’s record year – took place at 16:41 UTC. Chinese Commercial Launch: NigComSat-1R is built on DFH-4 satellite bus developed by the China…

The names of the military pilots selected in 2010 to form China’s second group of taikonauts – which have been a closely guarded secret for the last 18 months – appear to have been released to the space community, due to a possible philatelic blunder. Chinese Taikonauts: A space collectibles website is offering a postal cover for…

A record breaking 16th successful launch of the year for China took place at 21:07 UTC on Thursday, when a Long March 3A (Chang Zheng-3A) launch vehicle orbited a new navigation satellite – another for the BeiDou-2 Compass satellite navigation range – from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in Sichuan Province. China’s Record: This launch was the 16th…

After the successful return of Shenzhou-8 on November 17, China entered on the final phase of its 2011 launch schedule with the launch of two research satellites, the SW-4 Shiyyan Weixing and the Chuang Xin-1 (3), from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The launch took place at 00:15 UTC on Sunday from the 603 (SLS-2)…

China’s YaoGan Weixing-12 (YG-12) satellite – highly likely to be used for military purposes – has been launched into orbit by a CZ-4B Chang Zheng-4B (Long March 4B) rocket on Wednesday. The launch took place from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 11:21am local time. Another Chinese Launch: Once again, the Chinese media classed the satellite…

After the TG-1 TinGong-1 launch success, China took another step in the international satellite market with the successful launch of the European Eutelsat-W3C communications satellite on Thursday. The launch took place at 08:21 UTC using a Long March 3B/E (Chang Zheng-3B/E) launch vehicle. Chinese Launch: According to Eutelsat, the new W3C satellite will provide significant…

China returned to flight with the launch of a military communications satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, exactly one month after the launch failure that destroyed the SJ-11 ShiJian 11-04 military satellite. The launch of this new communications satellite, the ZX-1A ZhongXing-1A (ChinaSat-1A) toke place at 16:33 UTC on Sunday using a Long March…

With an apparent urgency to complete an orbiting constellation, China launched another new satellite in the ShiJian-11 series, just three weeks after the launch of the previous ShiJian-11 mission. However, the launch of the Long March 2C with ShiJian 11-04 failed during ascent after leaving the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 09:28UTC on Thursday. Chinese Failure: The…