Tag: Shiyan
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China outlines ambitious plans for Moon landing; ZhuQue-2 prepares to launch again
Over the last few weeks, China has remained busy with both launching rockets and announcing news, as the country outlined its ambitious plans for its upcoming Lunar program, in which they hope to land a taikonaut on the surface of the Moon by 2030. What’s more, China launched a rideshare mission on an all-solid rocket…
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Commercial rockets spotted amidst Chinese launch tripleheader
China is starting to increase its launch cadence again after a slow start to 2023. This week saw three launches in the Chang Zheng family while several more non-Chang Zheng vehicles were spotted on launch pads at Jiuquan. Satellite Imagery of Jiuquan Recently published satellite imagery showed new Chinese commercial vehicles on multiple pads at…
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APStar, Yaogan, and Shiyan payloads lift off from China
China has launched two more missions to orbit, bringing its launch count in January to four launches already. First, a Chang Zheng 2C launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC) on Thursday at 18:10 UTC, carrying APStar-6E. On Friday, a Chang Zheng 2D was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC), carrying the…
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China kicks off 2023 campaign with launch doubleheader
With two launches now under its belt, China joins the US as the second nation to have launched to orbit in 2023. First, the Shijian 23 payload lifted off at 22:00 UTC on Sunday onboard a Chang Zheng 7A from Wenchang. Just seven hours later, Gushenxing-1 carried the “Give Me Five” rideshare mission to orbit…
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China to launch new station modules and collaborate with Europe on science missions in 2023
With launch numbers 63 and 64 just before the end of this year, China finishes its most successful spaceflight year yet. Another Gaofen-11 launched from Taiyuan on a Chang Zheng 4B on Dec. 27 at 07:37 UTC, before the year was closed with the Shiyan 10-02 payload aboard a Chang Zheng 3B on Dec. 29…
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China completes doubleheader week from Xichang
Another busy week of rocket launches in China has come to a close. On Wednesday, the Yaogan 36 mission launched on a Chang Zheng 2D from Xichang, and on Friday, the launch of Shiyan 21 atop a Chang Zheng 11 rocket was conducted from the same spaceport. In total, four launches were conducted from China…
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China’s busy year continues with four launches in six days
With Monday’s launch of the Shiyan-20A satellite aboard a Chang Zheng 4C rocket, China has rounded out a busy few days which have seen four orbital launches – including the debut of one new rocket and the first successful flight of another. With just under three weeks remaining, 2022 has already been a record year…
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China successfully places Shiyan-20C satellite into orbit
The China Aerospace Science Corporation (CASC) successfully launched the classified Shiyan-20C satellite to low Earth orbit. Launched from Site 9401 (SLS-2) at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, the Chang Zheng 2D lifted off at 9:01 AM local time (01:01 UTC) on Oct. 29. Shiyan-20C marked the 147th orbital launch attempt in 2022 worldwide.…
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China conducts three launches with Shiyan and Yaogan satellites
China has launched three rockets, from two different launch sites, in under 50 hours. The first launch happened on Sunday, Sept. 24 at 22:55 UTC, with the Kuaizhou 1A rocket launching two Shiyan Weixing satellites. It was followed by two Chang Zheng missions, of which one also belongs to the Shiyan line, and one to…
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China launches Long March 2D with Shiyan-13 to start busy year
China successfully kicked off 2022 with the launch of the classified Shiyan-13 payload from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) aboard a Chang Zheng 2D (internationally called the Long March 2D). The launch occurred at 10:35 AM local time (02:35 UTC) on January 17 with the Shiyan-13 payload inserted into a 468 x 493 km…