{"id":10739,"date":"2021-12-30T01:15:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T17:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/long-march-7a-rocket-deploys-two-chinese-tech-demo-satellites\/"},"modified":"2021-12-30T01:15:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T17:15:12","slug":"long-march-7a-rocket-deploys-two-chinese-tech-demo-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/long-march-7a-rocket-deploys-two-chinese-tech-demo-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"Long March 7A rocket deploys two Chinese tech demo satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A Long March 7A rocket lifts off Dec. 23 from the Wenchang space center. Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

China launched two classified Shiyan satellites Dec. 23 into a geostationary transfer orbit aboard a Long March 7A rocket, one of the country\u2019s newest launch vehicles. The mission took off from China\u2019s Wenchang launch base on Hainan Island.<\/p>\n

The 199-foot-tall (60.7-meter) rocket launched from Wenchang at 5:12 a.m. EST (1012 GMT) on Dec. 23, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, China\u2019s biggest state-owned aerospace contractor.<\/p>\n

The Long March 7A lifted off powered by six kerosene-fueled YF-100 engines \u2014 two on the rocket\u2019s core stage and four under a cluster of strap-on boosters \u2014 and headed downrange over the South China Sea. The engines generated 1.6 million pounds of thrust before the boosters and core stage shut down and jettisoned.<\/p>\n

A second stage with four kerosene-burning YF-115 engines fired next, then gave way to a hydrogen-fed third stage with two YF-75 engines. The third stage deployed the two satellites \u2014 designated Shiyan 12-01 and Shiyan 12-02 \u2014 into an elongated geostationary transfer orbit ranging between 120 miles (200 kilometers) and 22,245 miles (35,800 kilometers) above Earth, with an inclination of 19.5 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

The orbital parameters suggest the Shiyan 12 satellites will use their on-board propulsion systems to circularize their altitude at more than 22,000 miles over the equator. At that altitude, known as a geostationary orbit, the satellites will circle Earth in lock-step with the planet\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n

CASC and Chinese state media said the Shiyan 12 satellites will be \u201cmainly used for space environment detection and related technical tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shiyan means \u201cexperiment\u201d in Chinese. Some Shiyan satellites are believed by independent experts to have a military purpose.<\/p>\n

The launch Thursday marked the seventh flight of a Long March 7 rocket, and the third using the Long March 7A configuration.<\/p>\n

The Long March 7 is designed to launch medium-sized satellites, such as Tianzhou resupply ships for China\u2019s space station in low Earth orbit. The Long March 7A variant flies with a reignitable third stage, giving the rocket an ability to deploy satellites \u2014 like the Shiyan 12 pair \u2014 heading into higher orbits.<\/p>\n

The Long March 7A rocket can carry payloads of up to 15,400 pounds, or 7 metric tons, into geostationary transfer orbit.<\/p>\n

China debuted the Long March 7A rocket in March 2020 after two successful flights of the basic Long March 7 configuration in 2016 and 2017. But the Long March 7A failed to reach orbit and fell back to Earth a few minutes after liftoff from Wenchang.<\/p>\n

Chinese media reported one of the Long March 7A\u2019s booster engines shut down prematurely on the failed March 2020 flight. Chinese officials blamed the failure on a pressurization problem in the liquid oxygen inlet feeding the engine.<\/p>\n

The launch Dec. 23 was the fourth Long March 7 flight this year, including successful second Long March 7A mission in March, and two Long March 7 launches with Tianzhou cargo freighters for China\u2019s space station.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Long March 7A rocket lifts off Dec. 23 from the Wenchang space center. Credit: CASC China launched two classified Shiyan satellites Dec. 23 into a geostationary transfer orbit aboard a Long March 7A rocket, one of the country\u2019s newest launch vehicles. The mission took off from China\u2019s Wenchang launch base on Hainan Island. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}