{"id":12281,"date":"2020-08-06T17:14:31","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T09:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/earth-observation-and-research-satellites-ride-chinese-rocket-into-orbit\/"},"modified":"2020-08-06T17:14:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T09:14:31","slug":"earth-observation-and-research-satellites-ride-chinese-rocket-into-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/earth-observation-and-research-satellites-ride-chinese-rocket-into-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth observation and research satellites ride Chinese rocket into orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_46910\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46910\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-46910\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/139269468_15966967194211n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/139269468_15966967194211n.jpg 900w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/139269468_15966967194211n-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/139269468_15966967194211n-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/139269468_15966967194211n-678x452.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-46910\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">China launches a Long March 2D rocket Thursday from the Jiuquan space base. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>China sent an Earth observation satellite and a university-built research payload into orbit Thursday aboard a Long March 2D rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The Long March 2D booster launched from the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 12:01 p.m. Beijing time) Thursday, according to China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The two-stage rocket delivered its payloads into a polar orbit around 300 miles (500 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 97.5 degrees to the equator, according to U.S. military tracking data.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese officials announced the launch as a success. It was China\u2019s 22nd orbital launch attempt of 2020, including three missions that failed to place their payloads into orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The primary payload on Thursday\u2019s launch was the Gaofen 9-04 Earth observation satellite, Chinese officials said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Chinese state media, the Gaofen 9-04 satellite \u201cwill be mainly used for land surveys, city planning, land right confirmation, road network design, crop yield estimation and disaster prevention and mitigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_46913\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46913\" style=\"width: 509px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-46913\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/tsinghua.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"509\" height=\"461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/tsinghua.jpg 331w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/tsinghua-300x272.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 509px) 100vw, 509px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-46913\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Tsinghua Science Satellite rode into orbit as a secondary payload with China\u2019s Gaofen 9-04 Earth observation satellite. Credit: Tsinghua Uninversity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Gaofen 9-04 spacecraft is the fourth satellite to launch in China\u2019s Gaofen 9-series, following missions launched in 2015 and on May 31 and June 17 of this year. It is not clear whether the Gaofen 9 satellites are identical or only share a name, but Chinese state media reports associated with each launch indicated the payloads all carried optical Earth-imaging cameras with a resolution of better than 3.3 feet, or 1 meter.<\/p>\n<p>China says the Gaofen series of satellites are managed by civilian officials. The Gaofen fleet includes satellites with optical, infrared and radar imaging observatories.<\/p>\n<p>A small spherical satellite developed at Tsinghua University in Beijing accompanied the Gaofen 9-04 satellite. Scientists will use the satellite to collect data on atmospheric density and the gravity field in low Earth orbit<\/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>China launches a Long March 2D rocket Thursday from the Jiuquan space base. Credit: Xinhua China sent an Earth observation satellite and a university-built research payload into orbit Thursday aboard a Long March 2D rocket. The Long March 2D booster launched from the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; [&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":[135,159,1793,2133,2134,1578,25,205],"class_list":["post-12281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-earth-observation","tag-gaofen","tag-gaofen-9","tag-gaofen-9-04","tag-jiuquan","tag-launch","tag-long-march"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12281"}],"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=12281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}