{"id":12111,"date":"2020-11-14T22:40:15","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T14:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/china-launches-mobile-telecom-satellite\/"},"modified":"2020-11-14T22:40:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T14:40:15","slug":"china-launches-mobile-telecom-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/china-launches-mobile-telecom-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches mobile telecom satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Long March 3B rocket takes off with the Tiantong 1-02 communications satellite. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new Chinese mobile communications satellite launched Thursday on top of a Long March 3B rocket, joining a similar spacecraft launched four years ago to provide voice and data services to users on the go.<\/p>\n

The Tiantong 1-02 mobile communications satellite lifted off at 1559 GMT (10:59 a.m. EST) Thursday from the Xichang satellite launch center in Sichuan province of southwestern China, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.<\/p>\n

The launch occurred at 11:59 p.m. Beijing time.<\/p>\n

A Long March 3B rocket carried the Tiantong 1-02 satellite into orbit.<\/p>\n

The 184-foot-tall (56-meter) rocket shed its four hydrazine-fueled strap-on boosters, a core stage, and a second stage in the first few minutes of the flight, then a cryogenic upper stage ignited two times to deploy the Tiantong 1-02 spacecraft into an elliptical, or egg-shaped, orbit.<\/p>\n

Tracking data released by the U.S. military indicated the rocket placed the Tiantong 1-02 spacecraft into an orbit ranging between 105 miles (170 kilometers) and 22,257 miles (35,820 kilometers) above Earth, with an inclination of about 28.4 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

Chinese officials declared the launch a success, and the Tiantong 1-02 spacecraft is expected to circularize its orbit in the coming days using its own propulsion system. The satellite will settle into a circular geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator, where its velocity will match the speed of Earth\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n

A statement released by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. \u2014 the top state-owned contractor for China\u2019s space program \u2014 said the Tiantong 1-02 satellite will join the Tiantong 1-01 satellite launched in 2016 to form an S-band mobile communications system.<\/p>\n

Similar mobile satellite networks, such as the commercial Inmarsat system, include hand-held terminals for subscribers to connect from remote locales. Users on the Tiantong network also employ small handsets.<\/p>\n

The Tiantong network is \u201cindependently developed and constructed\u201d by China, and allows users to connect with voice communications and message and data services across China, other parts of the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Africa, according to CASC.<\/p>\n

The mobile communications network, which operates will also serve users in most areas of the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, officials said.<\/p>\n

China Telecom, China\u2019s third largest mobile network provider, operates and markets Tiantong satellite communications services.<\/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 3B rocket takes off with the Tiantong 1-02 communications satellite. Credit: Xinhua A new Chinese mobile communications satellite launched Thursday on top of a Long March 3B rocket, joining a similar spacecraft launched four years ago to provide voice and data services to users on the go. The Tiantong 1-02 mobile communications […]<\/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":[135,1907,25,205,1888,1611,1908,2006],"class_list":["post-12111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-china-telecom","tag-launch","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-3b","tag-telecom","tag-tiantong","tag-tiantong-1-02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111"}],"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=12111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}