{"id":11532,"date":"2021-08-05T21:55:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T13:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/keeping-up-busy-launch-schedule-china-launches-military-telecom-satellite\/"},"modified":"2021-08-05T21:55:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T13:55:19","slug":"keeping-up-busy-launch-schedule-china-launches-military-telecom-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/keeping-up-busy-launch-schedule-china-launches-military-telecom-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping up busy launch schedule, China launches military telecom satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_52857\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52857\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52857\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lm3b_chinasat2e.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"654\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lm3b_chinasat2e.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lm3b_chinasat2e-300x164.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lm3b_chinasat2e-678x370.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lm3b_chinasat2e-768x419.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52857\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 3B rocket lifts off with the Chinasat 2E satellite Thursday. Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>China launched a communications satellite likely designed for use by the Chinese military Thursday, keeping up a busy schedule of space missions with the country\u2019s fourth orbital launch attempt in barely a week.<\/p>\n<p>The launch Thursday occurred at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT), marking China\u2019s 28th orbital launch attempt of the year. Nine of those missions have launched since July 1.<\/p>\n<p>A 184-foot-tall (56-meter) Long March 3B rocket carried the Chinese-built Zhongxing 2E, or Chinasat 2E, communications satellite into orbit after liftoff from the Xichang space center in southwestern China. The launch happened at 12:30 a.m. Beijing time Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, China\u2019s largest state-owned space contractor, said the Long March 3B rocket successfully delivered the Zhongxing 2E satellite into its targeted orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The mission aimed to deploy the spacecraft in an elongated geostationary transfer orbit ranging more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth at its apogee, or highest point.<\/p>\n<p>The Zhongxing 2E satellite\u2019s on-board propulsion system will do the rest of the work needed to place the spacecraft in a circular geostationary orbit over the equator, where its orbital velocity will match the rate of Earth\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, CASC said Zhongxing 2E \u201cis a communications and broadcasting satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zhongxing 2E is likely based on the DFH-4 satellite design produced by the China Academy of Space Technology, another government-owned contractor in the Chinese space program.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts believe previous satellites in the Zhongxing 2 series, including a spacecraft on a previous launch in 2019, are designed to provide mobile communications services to the Chinese military. Zhongxing 2E likely has a similar mission.<\/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 3B rocket lifts off with the Chinasat 2E satellite Thursday. Credit: CASC China launched a communications satellite likely designed for use by the Chinese military Thursday, keeping up a busy schedule of space missions with the country\u2019s fourth orbital launch attempt in barely a week. The launch Thursday occurred at 12:30 p.m. [&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-11532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532"}],"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=11532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}