{"id":11776,"date":"2021-03-31T01:06:19","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T17:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/china-launches-gaofen-earth-observation-satellite\/"},"modified":"2021-03-31T01:06:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T17:06:19","slug":"china-launches-gaofen-earth-observation-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/china-launches-gaofen-earth-observation-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches Gaofen Earth observation satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_50931\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-50931\" style=\"width: 1023px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-50931\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/139848078_16171523233721n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1023\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/139848078_16171523233721n.jpg 1023w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/139848078_16171523233721n-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/139848078_16171523233721n-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/139848078_16171523233721n-678x452.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-50931\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 4C rocket lifts off with the Gaofen 12-02 Earth observation satellite. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>An Earth observation satellite China says will assist in land surveys, urban planning, and agriculture monitoring successfully launched Tuesday on a Chinese Long March 4C rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft is the second Gaofen 12-type Earth-imaging satellite launched by China. Chinese officials say the Gaofen satellites are part of&nbsp;the China High-Resolution Earth Observation System, or CHEOS.<\/p>\n<p>China says the CHEOS satellite fleet is a civilian-operated program comprising optical and radar imaging spacecraft. Chinese authorities have published high-resolution imagery taken by previous Gaofen satellites, suggesting there is a civilian component to their missions. Other satellites, like the Yaogan series, are for primarily military purposes.<\/p>\n<p>The Gaofen 12-02 satellite took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China at 2245 GMT (6:45 p.m. EDT) Tuesday on a Long March 4C rocket. The three-stage rocket deployed its payload into a polar orbit around 370 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth at an inclination of 97.8 degrees to the equator, according to U.S. military tracking data.<\/p>\n<p>The launch was a \u201ccomplete success,\u201d according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, China\u2019s largest government-run aerospace contractor. Liftoff occurred at 6:45 a.m. Beijing time Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The only notice of the launch ahead of time was the usual publication of airspace warning notices associated with downrange booster drop zones.<\/p>\n<p>In a post-launch statement, CASC said the Gaofen 12-02 satellite will be used for land surveys, urban planning, road network design, crop yield estimation, and disaster prevention and mitigation.<\/p>\n<p>The CHEOS satellite fleet includes spacecraft with optical and radar imaging instruments. It is not clear whether the Gaofen 12-02 satellite is designed for optical or radar observations.<\/p>\n<p>The first Gaofen 12-type satellite launched on a Long March 4C rocket in November 2019. The Long March 4C rocket can carry a payload of up to 6,600 pounds (3 metric tons) to a 435-mile-high (700-kilometer) polar sun-synchronous orbit, according to CASC.<\/p>\n<p>The Long March 4C launch Tuesday marked China\u2019s eighth&nbsp;orbital launch attempt this year. Seven of the missions have been successful.<\/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 4C rocket lifts off with the Gaofen 12-02 Earth observation satellite. Credit: Xinhua An Earth observation satellite China says will assist in land surveys, urban planning, and agriculture monitoring successfully launched Tuesday on a Chinese Long March 4C rocket. The spacecraft is the second Gaofen 12-type Earth-imaging satellite launched by China. Chinese [&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":[312,1792,135,159,1793,1794,1795,1578],"class_list":["post-11776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-casc","tag-cheos","tag-china","tag-earth-observation","tag-gaofen","tag-gaofen-12","tag-gaofen-12-02","tag-jiuquan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11776"}],"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=11776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}