{"id":10854,"date":"2021-11-04T01:09:07","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T17:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/china-launches-two-classified-military-satellites\/"},"modified":"2021-11-04T01:09:07","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T17:09:07","slug":"china-launches-two-classified-military-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/china-launches-two-classified-military-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches two classified military satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_54193\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-54193\" style=\"width: 1050px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-54193\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/lm2c_yg32.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"619\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/lm2c_yg32.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/lm2c_yg32-300x177.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/lm2c_yg32-678x400.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/lm2c_yg32-768x453.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-54193\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 2C rocket lifts off with two Yaogan 32 Chinese military satellites. Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>China launched two classified military satellites Wednesday on top of a Long March 2C rocket augmented by a restartable upper stage.<\/p>\n<p>The Long March 2C launcher lifted off from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China at 3:43 a.m. EDT (0743 GMT) Wednesday, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., the country\u2019s primary state-owned aerospace contractor.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff occurred at 3:43 p.m. Beijing time.<\/p>\n<p>The payloads on the mission were two Yaogan 32-class military satellites, Chinese officials said. In a post-launch statement, CASC &nbsp;called the payloads \u201cremote sensing\u201d satellites, but offered no additional details.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese government uses the Yaogan name as a cover for military spy satellites. Independent analysts believe some types of &nbsp;Yaogan satellites carry high-resolution optical surveillance instruments and radars to monitor Earth\u2019s surface day and night, supplying daily imagery to Chinese intelligence agencies and military commanders.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the two Yaogan 32 satellites launched Thursday remains a mystery. The first pair of Yaogan 32-type satellites launched in 2018 on a previous Long March 2C rocket.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. military tracking data showed the two Yaogan 32 satellites deployed into a near-circular polar orbit stretching as high as 436 miles (703 kilometers), with an inclination of 98.1 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n<p>The liquid-fueled Long March 2C rocket, which usually flies in a two-stage configuration, carried an additional upper stage on Wednesday\u2019s mission. The Yuanzheng 1S upper stage is designed for multiple engine firings to place payloads into different orbits.<\/p>\n<p>Yuanzheng is the Chinese word for expedition.<\/p>\n<p>With the addition of the Yuanzheng 1S upper stage, the Long March 2C rocket can place a payload of up to two metric tons (about 4,400 pounds) into sun-synchronous orbit, a popular destination for Earth observation spacecraft. Without the upper stage, the Long March 2C\u2019s lift capability to the same type of orbit is 1.2 metric tons (about 2,650 pounds).<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Long March 2C rocket lifts off with two Yaogan 32 Chinese military satellites. Credit: CASC China launched two classified military satellites Wednesday on top of a Long March 2C rocket augmented by a restartable upper stage. The Long March 2C launcher lifted off from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert of northwestern [&hellip;]<\/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-10854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10854"}],"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=10854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}