{"id":12148,"date":"2020-10-26T17:08:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T09:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/china-launches-three-military-spy-satellites\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T17:08:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T09:08:00","slug":"china-launches-three-military-spy-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/china-launches-three-military-spy-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches three military spy satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_48193\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-48193\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48193\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2.jpg 900w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2-678x509.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2-326x245.jpg 326w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1126660678_16037295937031n-2-80x60.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-48193\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 2C rocket takes off Monday from the Xichang launch base in China. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Three mysterious payloads widely believed to be signals intelligence satellites for the Chinese military rocketed into orbit on top of a Long March 2C booster Monday from a launch base in southwestern China.<\/p>\n<p>The three Yaogan 30-type satellites lifted off aboard the Long March 2C rocket at 11:19 a.m. EDT (1519 GMT) Monday from the Xichang space center in the Sichuan province of southwestern China. Liftoff occurred at 11:19 p.m. Beijing time, according to China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, or CALT, declared the mission a \u201ccomplete success\u201d in a statement. CALT is the government-owned contractor that produced the Long March 2C rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The two-stage Long March 2C rocket,&nbsp;fueled by liquid hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, delivered the three Yaogan 30 satellites to a 370-mile-high (595-kilometer) orbit inclined 35 degrees to the equator, according to U.S. military tracking data.<\/p>\n<p>The satellites are the seventh triplet of Yaogan 30-type spacecraft since 2017 launched on Long March 2C rockets from the Xichang facility into similar orbits. The three Yaogan 30-07 satellites launched Monday are designed for remote sensing of the \u201celectromagnetic environment\u201d from their orbit 370 miles above Earth, Xinhua said.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese government uses the Yaogan name for the country\u2019s military satellites, and the Yaogan 30 family is believed to be designed for a signals intelligence mission.<\/p>\n<p>Some analysts suggested the Yaogan 30 family of satellites could be testing new electronic eavesdropping equipment, or helping the Chinese military track U.S. and other foreign naval deployments.&nbsp;But details about the spacecraft and their missions have not been disclosed by the Chinese government.<\/p>\n<p>A fourth payload hitched a ride to space on the Long March 2C rocket Monday. The small satellite, named Tianqi 6, was&nbsp;launched for the Beijing-based company Guodian Gaoke on a mission to provide commercial data relay services.<\/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 takes off Monday from the Xichang launch base in China. Credit: Xinhua Three mysterious payloads widely believed to be signals intelligence satellites for the Chinese military rocketed into orbit on top of a Long March 2C booster Monday from a launch base in southwestern China. The three Yaogan 30-type satellites [&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":[135,1752,205,1740,2025,1611,2026,2027],"class_list":["post-12148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-guodian-gaoke","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-2c","tag-sigint","tag-telecom","tag-tianqi","tag-tianqi-6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148"}],"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=12148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}