{"id":11705,"date":"2021-05-01T00:16:33","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T16:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinese-long-march-6-rocket-delivers-nine-small-satellites-to-space\/"},"modified":"2021-05-01T00:16:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T16:16:33","slug":"chinese-long-march-6-rocket-delivers-nine-small-satellites-to-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinese-long-march-6-rocket-delivers-nine-small-satellites-to-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Long March 6 rocket delivers nine small satellites to space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Long March 6 rocket lifts with April 27 with nine satellites. Credit: CASC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nine small Chinese satellites, including a technology experiment to test out ways to capture space debris, rode a Long March 6 rocket into orbit April 27 on a rideshare mission managed by China Great Wall Industry Corp., the government-owned enterprise charged with selling Chinese launch services on the commercial market.<\/p>\n

The fifth flight of a Long March 6 rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan space base in northern China\u2019s Shanxi province at 0320 GMT April 27 (11:20 p.m. EDT April 26), according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., the state-owned prime contractor for the Chinese space program.<\/p>\n

The contractor, known as CASC, said in a statement that the mission was a \u201ccomplete success\u201d after the Long March 6 rocket deployed nine satellites into their targeted orbit. Publicly-released tracking data from the U.S. military indicated the launch delivered its payloads to a polar orbit about 310 miles (500 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 97.4 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

Designed to loft relatively small satellites into orbit, the Long March 6 is one of China\u2019s newer rockets. The Long March 6 stands about 95 feet (29 meters) tall, and can haul a payload of up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) to a sun-synchronous polar orbit a few hundred miles above Earth.<\/p>\n

The Long March 6\u2019s first stage is powered by a kerosene-fueled YF-100 main engine, a staged combustion powerplant Chinese engineers have worked on since 2000. The engine generates approximately 120 metric tons, or 264,000 pounds, of thrust. A YF-115 engine provides propulsion for the Long March 6 second stage.<\/p>\n

The YF-100 and YF-115 engines are also used on China\u2019s heavier-duty Long March 5 and Long March 7 rockets. The Long March 6\u2019s third stage uses liquid-fueled thrusters for final orbital injection maneuvers before payload separation.<\/p>\n

The payloads aboard the Long March 6 launch this week included two Earth observation satellites owned Shandong Institutes of Industrial Technology. The Qilu 1 and Qilu 4 spacecraft are designed for radar and optical imaging, respectively.<\/p>\n

Qilu 1 will obtain all-weather remote sensing images of sites around the world, and also verify technologies for autonomous mission planning, on-orbit image processing, and inter-satellite laser communications, according to CASC. Qilu 4 will collect high-resolution optical imagery, aiding urban planning, agriculture, forestry, energy, and disaster mitigation efforts in Shandong province of northeast China.<\/p>\n

Another small satellite, named Foshan 1, is an optical Earth observation test out an \u201cultra-lightweight camera design,\u201d CASC said. Foshan 1 was developed by Cultivate Space Technology Co. for Jihua Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Two more optical remote sensing satellites, Hangsheng 1 and Taijing 2-01, were developed by Hunan Hangsheng Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing MinoSpace Technology Co., Ltd., according to CASC.<\/p>\n

The NEO 1 spacecraft for a Chinese company named Origin Space will perform experiments aimed at validating technologies, such as a net, that might be used on future missions to capture and remove space junk from Earth orbit. The NEO 1 satellite will also observe small celestial bodies, presumably asteroids, CGWIC said in a press release.<\/p>\n

The Tianqi 9 satellite that launched on the Long March 6 rocket joins a fleet of orbiting data relay stations designed for Internet of Things services. The Tianqi constellation is owned by Guodian Gaoke, a Beijing-based company.<\/p>\n

The other two spacecraft on the Long March 6 launch were the Golden Bauhinia 1-01 and Golden Bauhinia 1-02 satellites. Both are remote sensing satellites developed by Beijing ZeroG Space Technology Co., Ltd.<\/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 6 rocket lifts with April 27 with nine satellites. Credit: CASC Nine small Chinese satellites, including a technology experiment to test out ways to capture space debris, rode a Long March 6 rocket into orbit April 27 on a rideshare mission managed by China Great Wall Industry Corp., the government-owned enterprise charged […]<\/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":[312,1749,135,291,159,1750,1751,1752],"class_list":["post-11705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-casc","tag-cgwic","tag-china","tag-commercial-space","tag-earth-observation","tag-foshan-1","tag-golden-bauhinia","tag-guodian-gaoke"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11705"}],"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=11705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}