{"id":10808,"date":"2021-11-30T22:17:20","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T14:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/china-launches-surge-of-space-missions\/"},"modified":"2021-11-30T22:17:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T14:17:20","slug":"china-launches-surge-of-space-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/china-launches-surge-of-space-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches surge of space missions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A Long March 4C rocket takes off Nov. 22 from the Jiuquan launch base with the Gaofen 3-02 remote sensing satellite Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

China has launched four space missions from three different spaceports in the span of a week, hauling cargo into orbit for military communications, radar surveillance, and optical imaging.<\/p>\n

The surge of launches began Nov. 20 with the blastoff of a Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan launch base in Shanxi province, a region of northern China, with a high-resolution optical remote sensing satellite.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft on-board the rocket was the third in a series of Gaofen 11-class Earth observation satellites.<\/p>\n

China has released little information about the design or capabilities of Gaofen 11 satellites. The state-owned prime contractor for the Chinese space program said the satellite will provide imagery to support land surveys, urban planning, road network design, agricultural monitoring, and disaster prevention and mitigation.<\/p>\n

Other types of Gaofen satellites have civilian purposes, but the Gaofen 11 series may be designed to serve the Chinese military, or have a dual purpose.<\/p>\n

The Long March 4B rocket is a three-stage launcher designed to loft medium-sized satellites into orbit.<\/p>\n

After taking off from Taiyuan at 0151 GMT on Nov. 20 (9:51 a.m. Beijing time; 8:51 p.m. EST on Nov. 19), the liquid-fueled rocket deployed the Gaofen 11-03 spacecraft into an oval-shaped polar orbit between 151 miles (243 kilometers) and 432 miles (695 kilometers) above Earth, according to orbit data published by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A Long March 4B rocket launches from the Taiyuan space center on Nov. 20 with the Gaofen 11-03 remote sensing satellite. Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three days later, a Long March 4C launcher fired off its launch pad at the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China.<\/p>\n

The payload on that mission was another Gaofen remote sensing satellite named Gaofen 3-02. Liftoff occurred at 2345 GMT (6:45 p.m. EST) on Nov. 22, or 7:45 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 23.<\/p>\n

The Long March 4C, also a three-stage rocket, delivered the Gaofen 3-02 satellite to an orbit about 470 miles (760 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 98.4 degrees to the equator, according to publicly-available U.S. military tracking data.<\/p>\n

The civilian-operated Gaofen 3-02 satellite will capture high-resolution all-weather imagery of Earth from its position in orbit. Carrying a C-band synthetic aperture radar, the craft weighs nearly 3 metric tons \u2014 about 6,500 pounds \u2014 and should help Chinese authorities better respond to natural disasters like earthquakes and floods, officials said.<\/p>\n

The new satellite will focus on gathering imagery day and night, regardless of weather conditions. The all-weather capability of radar imaging will give officials updated information even if clouds or rain showers block the view of space-based optical cameras.<\/p>\n

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, which manages the government-run enterprises within the Chinese space program, said the C-band radar instrument will gather information to meet needs in maritime environmental monitoring, emergency response, water conservation, weather observations, and agriculture.<\/p>\n

Gaofen 3-02 will work in tandem with the first Gaofen 3-type satellite launched in 2016.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A launcher fires into the sky from the Jiuquan launch base Nov. 24 with the Shiyan 11 satellite. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The week of Chinese launches continued almost exactly 48 hours later with the flight of a solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A rocket from Jiuquan.<\/p>\n

Sized to deploy small satellites in space, the Kuaizhou 1A carried a mysterious payload named Shiyan 11. U.S. military data showed the Shiyan 11 satellite in a roughly 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) polar orbit.<\/p>\n

Chinese officials released few details on Shiyan 11. According to CASC, the spacecraft will be used for land imaging, urban planning, crop yield estimation, and disaster monitoring.<\/p>\n

But China\u2019s Shiyan family of satellites are typically used for technology demonstrations or scientific experiments. Some satellites may use the Shiyan name as a cover for military-related clandestine activities.<\/p>\n

The fourth, and final, launch of the week occurred at 1640 GMT (11:40 a.m. EST) on Nov. 26, or at 12:40 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 27, CASC said in a statement.<\/p>\n

A Long March 3B rocket deployed a communications satellite named Zhongxing 1D, or Chinasat 1D, in an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit stretching as 22,264 miles (35,831 kilometers) from Earth.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A Long March 3B rocket blasts off from the Xichang launch base Nov. 26 with the Zhongxing 1D, or Chinasat 2D, communications satellite. Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mission lifted off from the Xichang spaceport in Sichuan province in southwestern China. Independent analysts believe Zhongxing 1D is likely a communications satellite for the Chinese military.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft will use its on-board propulsion system to circularize its orbit at geostationary altitude more than 22,000 miles over the equator, where Zhongxing 1D will match Earth\u2019s rotation, hovering over a fixed geographic position to provide uninterrupted communications to military users.<\/p>\n

The four successful rocket missions raised the total number of Chinese orbital launch attempts this year to 47, a number that includes two failures.<\/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 4C rocket takes off Nov. 22 from the Jiuquan launch base with the Gaofen 3-02 remote sensing satellite Credit: CASC China has launched four space missions from three different spaceports in the span of a week, hauling cargo into orbit for military communications, radar surveillance, and optical imaging. The surge of launches […]<\/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-10808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10808"}],"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=10808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}